If Gov. Beverly Perdue does propose regulating and taxing video gambling in her proposed budget, it appears she’ll have some work to do in convincing the state’s sheriffs and police chiefs that it is a good idea. The governor this week said legalizing the games is on the table as a way to generate more revenue for the state government as it faces a $3.7 billion budget hole. Chris Mackey, a Perdue spokeswoman, said the governor realizes the games keep coming back in new forms after successive attempts to ban them. But the N.C. Sheriff’s Association and N.C. Association of Chiefs of Police have already lined up against such a proposal. “The sheriffs’ association looks at this electronic sweepstakes the same as it did video gambling,” said Eddie Caldwell, the association’s attorney. “It’s the same thing, just a different device.”
North Carolina’s 100 sheriffs are against legalizing the machines because of the threats to public safety — such as money laundering and organized crime — that often come with gambling, Caldwell said. The video poker industry, which had been regulated by sheriffs until it was banned in 2007, spawned public corruption and bribery of law enforcement officers. Poker machines made thousands of dollars a day. Former Buncombe County Sheriff Bobby Medford is in federal prison for taking bribes to look the other way on illegal gambling. George Erwin, the police chiefs’ association executive director and former Henderson County sheriff, said there are concerns that poorer North Carolina residents, who can least afford to gamble, will become the industry’s best customers. “The association is confident that the governor, once she does her own investigation, will come to the same conclusion that the sheriffs have that this is not appropriate for North Carolina,” he said. (Jon Ostendorff, ASHEVILLE CITIZEN-TIMES, 2/03/11).
