LETTERS: GAMBLING COMPANIES TOOK RISKS

To the editor:

It is unfair to change the rules for riverboat gambling. It is also against Missouri constitutional law. Yet that is just what the gambling commission, along with most riverboat gambling companies, have done since gambling was legalized in Missouri. It is also what these groups are continuing to try to accomplish.

If the precedent of promise breaking and non-adherence to Missouri constitutional law continue to be the way of business in Missouri for gambling companies and their concerns, maybe these aren't the type of companies we want in Missouri.

When gambling companies and pro-gambling interests came to our state, it was with many ideas, promises and large amounts of advertising dollars.

Some of the most publicized were historical riverboats cruising the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, acceptance of a $500 loss limit, large financial commitments to land-based facilities, and joint agreements of percentages on tax money for education and communities.

Yet to date gambling interests have tried to break or lower all of these promises. Some have been accomplished with the help of the gambling commission and a few state employees.

I agree with gambling companies that a group like the commission should not have made promises of what they would do only to renege later. But since that seems to be the way the gambling companies have played so far, I guess they though the rules had changed.

The gambling companies blame Missouri for the situation they find themselves in today. Why? If it is unsafe for them to cruise, why wouldn't they have considered safety first for their customers and stayed on the Big Muddy?

And if gambling companies don't consider these facts beforehand, how does that place the blame on the state?

If gambling companies agreed to certain tax percentages, why are they now trying to lower them?

If they knew that we Missourians wisely chose a $500 gambling loss limit for our own citizens and those from other states, why are they trying to sway our officials to overrule Missouri voters?

If from the beginning "rivers" meant the real Missouri and Mississippi rivers, and "land based" meant restaurants, parks, hotels and parking lots, why are gambling companies now confusing the terms with moats, ponds and lakes?

Is the idea of holding companies to the original agreements and promises so extreme? Or is it just what would be expected when the contracts were signed?

Though Missouri citizens opposed to gambling may have a social agenda, is it they who are hurting these employees or the gambling companies that presumed they could settle in under one agreement and set of promises only to change these agreements at will?

Missouri citizens who are against gambling are not guilty of changing the original agreement or lying to these companies. They are just watching the gambling companies a little closer than the other voters.

I believe the gambling companies themselves are to blame for any employee who would be adversely affected. It was these companies that failed to abide by the original promises accepted by our voters.

So who are the gambling companies hurting by not following the rules they agreed to? First, themselves, followed by their investors, their employees and their vendors. Next in line would be our teachers, principals and school administrators, then our children who were promised the extra tax money from these companies' earnings. Lastly, they are going to hurt the very communities they promised to help improve through negotiated taxes, gifts and construction jobs.

So I come to a much different conclusion than Larry J. Buck of Players Island Casino in St. Louis. The message to all new businesses considering Missouri is, "Come on, bring your companies, tell us your ideals and concerns, deal with us truthfully, expecting the same from us. If our citizens need to be involved, give us the same respect you would want. Once an agreement is made, choose to abide by it, even if some our citizens would tempt you to do otherwise. Because if you choose to be responsible and respectable, then your company and your employees will have a winning future ahead of you in our great state of Missouri."

Instead of "Show Me" the money, "Show Me" integrity.

BRUCE COLLIER

Cape Girardeau