"The $7 billion that passes through California's Indian gaming facilities already surpasses the collective take of all the casinos on the Las Vegas Strip. Our state is home to more than 50 Nevada-style gambling resorts, more than 60,000 slot machines and hundreds of blackjack and poker tables. Throw in the lottery and horse racing, and we're spending six times more on gambling in California than 10 years ago — more than $13 billion a year.

But Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Democratic leaders of the Legislature apparently don't think that's enough. They're more intent than ever on pushing through what some critics call the biggest gambling expansion in recent national history. If they're successful, California could soon surpass Nevada as the nation's gambling mecca.

The five major deals that the governor is backing and the legislators are pondering would radically expand the gaming capacity of powerful tribes that already own lucrative casinos. When those tribes won the initial right to open their casinos, they got a sweetheart deal from ex-Gov. Gray Davis and were exempted from kicking back any of their profits to the state. Schwarzenegger's rationale for expanding those deals is that if California renegotiates the compacts, the tribes will get more than the current maximum of 2,000 slot machines per casino and the state will be cut in for a percentage of earnings that could produce hundreds of millions of dollars to offset its lingering budget deficit.

If the deals go through, California will have 22,000 more slot machines and several new casinos.

The expansion deals were blocked at the end of last year's legislative session after Democrats complained that they didn't offer enough guarantees for labor unions to freely organize. Now the governor's back with his proposals, and Democratic Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez is trying to fashion a bipartisan compromise on the labor issue to get them approved. Democratic Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata is sponsoring one of the five expansion bills — the one that would benefit the wealthiest tribe.

Critics of unbridled gambling expansion are alarmed, in part because so much political weight is being thrown behind tribes that are already cashing in big time. The tribe that would benefit from the measure that Perata is carrying — the 400-member Agua Caliente band of Cahuilla Indians, already the biggest landlord in Palm Springs — operates two full-sized casinos that compare with Nevada's finest and would be allowed to open a third under the bill."

Get the Story:
Marc Cooper: Does California really need more casinos? (The Los Angeles Times 3/11)
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