ILLINOIS CASINOS WANT MORE, LIKE MISSOURI

Once gambling companies have a toehold in a state, it appears they think the sky's the limit. Look at the Illinois riverboat casinos, for example. For the second consecutive year, gross receipts are down. The reason? Why, it's all that competition in the neighboring states like Missouri.

The Illinois casinos have a solution. Lower the taxes casinos must pay, and drop the requirement that riverboats must go on excursions. So far, Illinois regulators have steadfastly required the casinos to float and take trips while gamblers are on board.

Does any of this sound familiar? It might, if you've been following the efforts of gambling companies in Missouri. They've already persuaded the state's gaming commission to abandon excursion's on the Missouri or Mississippi rivers. Most of the casinos aren't even on the river and couldn't set sail if they wanted to.

And then there are those pesky loss limits and all those taxes Missouri casinos have to contend with. They have a solution for that too. Just drop the $500 loss limit, and ease up on the tax bite. After all, a gambling company has got to make a living.

Part of the argument in Missouri, of course, is that casinos are entitled to operate in an environment that will keep them competitive -- with bordering states.

And so the arguments go around and around. Missouri casinos argue they have to top Illinois. In Illinois, the argument is over stiff competition from Missouri. They float. We don't float. They don't have loss limits. We have loss limits. Their taxes are less. Our taxes are too high.

What the gambling companies want, of course, is what the Missouri Gaming Commission has appeared to be more than willing to give them all along: No excursions, boats in moats instead of on rivers and support for efforts to take away the loss limits -- all in the name of a good business climate. After all, the more money the casinos take in, the more money goes into state coffers.

But look at the figures. Riverboats in Missouri produce less than one-half of a percent of the state's total spending in a year. If all the riverboats closed up tomorrow, the revenue loss would hardly be a drop in the bucket -- and wouldn't even be enough to keep state revenue under the Hancock Amendment's spending lid, which currently is forcing the state to issue tax refund checks.

The state's lawmakers and regulators ought not to be so gullible when the casino operators come around and whine about the cost of doing business and how regulations and high taxes keep them from making the profit they want.