THE GAMBLING SAGA: IS THIS ANY WAY TO RUN A GOVERNMENT?

With the statewide failure of a riverboat gambling vote Tuesday, the Missouri General Assembly might use the remaining five weeks of its legislative session to adopt a state gesture: shrugged shoulders. In the aftermath of the amendment's rejection, effectively eliminating certain profitable games from floating casinos, no one seems to know what the next step should be. In the meantime, prospective businesses are left in limbo, prospective employees are left with an uncertain future and prospective customers are left heading for the state line. Is this any way to run a government?

Show Me schizophrenia

Missouri exhibited last week a not-unprecedented sort of schizophrenia when it comes to allowing gambling enterprises in the state. State voters approved parimutuel wagering in 1984, yet such a restrictive law was crafted that no major tracks have opened in Missouri. The state lottery was approved by voters in 1984, yet lottery officials had to seek ballot redress in 1988 to ease restrictions that stymied the game; even now, the Missouri game has never matched the appeal of its counterpart in Illinois. The state also allows citizens to participate in bingo games, yet keeps sponsoring organizations from advertising them by name.

And after approving riverboat gambling by a 62 percent-38 percent margin in November 1992, Missouri voters turned down the amendment by 1,261 votes out of more than 1 million cast last week. However, out of 114 counties, the measure failed in 101. In all neighboring counties here -- Cape Girardeau, Scott, Perry and Stoddard -- the issue failed. Square this latest mood with the fact Missourians have voted on gambling issues eight times in the last 16 years. Only twice have voters been negative to these selections, once in 1988 on an issue to lift bingo restrictions, and Tuesday.

Fed up with voting

Legislators, many of whom supported the opportunities that riverboat gambling promised for the state, are rightfully hesitant to get the matter back on the ballot any time soon. They presume that citizens get fed up with being bombarded by issues already turned down in a previous vote, and the lawmakers are generally right on that count. In Jefferson City, there is a mood of taking stock in the situation before rushing to determine another date for this issue's reconsideration.

Along these lines, the city of Cape Girardeau will also opt for a cooling-off period, pulling a June issue off the ballot. In fact, Tuesday's outcome left nothing for Cape Girardeans to vote on; the June election was intended to clear up all misreadings of law regarding riverboat gambling operations in this city, and now legal status statewide is far from explicit. While Cape Girardeau stands to gain a great deal from the legal determinations in this case, the city must essentially wait on the sidelines while these grander matters are worked out.

The losers

Who lost in this latest vote? Certainly, riverboat operators must be scratching their heads; they invested, by some accounting, $170 million in projects and planning in Missouri. Some are blazing fingers over calculator keys, pondering the bottom-line impact of a world without slot machines, while others must be wondering if their interests aren't better directed toward other states where gambling laws are more established. Since Missouri remains a potentially lucrative market, we are reasonably sure the gambling vendors will remain involved as the process develops.

More significantly, we believe the working people of Missouri are losers, since the jobs to be created by the floating casinos (construction, on-board employees, those needed in ancillary businesses) will be delayed. In Cape Girardeau alone, hundreds of jobs were in the offing on the proposed riverboat, and more than a thousand jobs total would have been created when support services were factored in. Statewide, up to 23,000 jobs were to be introduced. Those people looking to these jobs as an opportunity for better things must now see what directions the state and businesses steer.

An invisible governor

Finally, treasuries at various levels of government will lose, and this might provide one of the richer mysteries of Tuesday's vote. Gov. Mel Carnahan built gambling revenue into his equations for funding projects in higher education (to the tune of $61 million), yet he stood silent, as did many top officials in Jefferson City, when all indications were this election would be closely contested. Where was the leadership? And if the leadership was not going to be forthcoming, why tie so many projects to the prospective income?

What next?

Following Tuesday's vote, state Rep. Herb Fallert of Ste. Genevieve, who was one of Missouri's first and most vocal advocates of riverboat gambling, said something that provided real insight on the election's outcome. "When this was voted on the first time in November of 1992," he said, "the number one concern across the United States was jobs and the economy. Now, the number one concern by a big margin is crime and drugs. That makes a big difference in how people view riverboat gambling." His analysis of this, probably borne out by people's perceptions rather than reality, seems close to the mark. However, at some point, Missourians and their leaders will be asked again if this state desires riverboat gambling. Until then, we are all left to wonder what the next development in this story will be.