Kansas Senate Rejects Gambling Bill
23 Mar 2006
A gambling bill that has been in development for the past few months has been rejected by the Kansas senate. The bill was defeated 20-16 and crushed the hopes of gambling developers who had hoped that finally the bill would pass. The bill would allow gambling through two state-owned casinos and slot machines at three horse and dog tracks. The bill was pushed forward and was expected to get wide public support because of the aims to use the funds to raise money for public schools.
The defeat of the gambling bill is yet another in a series of defeats that the gambling legislators have had to face in the past. The senate has not approved any gambling related bill which requests its expansion since 1993. Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt said that the senate would not address any gambling related bills again this session and that the schools finance package therefore needed to be reviewed.
It is believed that the gambling bill would have generated about $152 million in the coming year, of which 25 percent would be returned to local governments for property tax relief. Some senators decided to vote against the gambling bill, even though they thought the state needed the money, because they believed that the costs of expanding gambling were too great for the state to bear and that the 'social ills' and 'corruption' being exposed to the residents was not worth it.
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