HOLD YOUR BETS

Well before the first bet can be placed at the Bangor racino slated to open later this year there have been many attempts to rewrite the state’s gaming laws. Some want to make them more stringent. Others want to expand gambling. All of this is premature.

Rather than anticipate problems that may or may not arise, lawmakers should want to see how existing rules work. That is the idea behind a Bangor City Council request for a three-year moratorium on changes to the state’s gambling laws.

The City Council, or course, can’t tell state lawmakers what to do, but legislators would do well to heed the city’s suggestion. Three years might not be the right length of time, but the point of seeing what will happen instead of speculating endlessly makes sense, especially now that a signature drive to ban gambling statewide has failed.

In 2003, Maine voters approved a referendum allowing slot machines at the state’s harness racing tracks. Earlier that year, voters in Bangor also approved the racino idea, making Bass Park the only facility eligible to host a racino. The next year, the Legislature rewrote the referendum language to strengthen government controls of gambling and a new entity, the Maine Gambling Control Board was established to implement the new law.

A Pennsylvania company is transforming the former Miller’s restaurant on Main Street into Hollywood Slots at Bangor, a temporary home to 1,500 slot machines while a permanent facility closer to the race track is built. The temporary facility is supposed to open in November, although the control board has run into a snag in licensing one of the company’s slot machine suppliers.

Before deciding whether the laws are too weak or that slot machines should be allowed elsewhere, Bangor’s experience should be assessed. The moratorium requested by the City Council would allow such a review.

Bangor, naturally, also wants a halt on rule changes so as not to endanger the expected economic benefits from the racino that could be jeopardized from allowing slot machines in other communities or from further restrictions on gambling. That’s understandable, but the state should want a moratorium simply to see whether the existing rules work.