Dear Legislator:

I am writing in regard to the legalization of slot machines at horse tracks in Maryland. As a resident of Western Maryland, the proposed location of a new horse track and slots parlor, I oppose the introduction of slot machines to my community.

Western Maryland is a conservative, family oriented area. The defeat of the former Speaker of the House in last fall’s election was due, in part, to his insistence on bringing slot machines to our community regardless of whether area residents wanted them or not.

The people of Western Maryland must have a say in our community’s future. And a future with slot machines could prove devastating:

• In Atlantic City, within four years of the introduction of gambling one-third of the city’s retail businesses had closed.

• The number of retail businesses in Gilpin, Colorado dropped from 31 before gambling arrived to 11 approximately 3 years after its legalization.

• More than 70% of the businesses in Natchez, Mississippi, reported declining sales within a few months of the opening of the city’s first gambling riverboat.

• An Iowa State University study found that nearly two-thirds of the gamblers at the Prairie Meadows Race Track and Casino in Des Moines lived in the county where the race track is located.

• A survey of gamblers in a Kansas City, Missouri, casino found that 88% lived within 45 minutes of the casino. The area surrounding a slots or casino location is known in the gambling industry as the “entrapment zone.” That’s where most of a gambling establishment’s patrons reside.

• Communities with legalized gambling have bankruptcy rates that are 18% higher than other communities, and crime rates an average 8% higher. Western Maryland already struggles with high rates of unemployment and poverty, as well as the social ills that accompany these problems. As the majority of patrons at slots parlors come from the surrounding community, slot machines could exacerbate our existing problems to the point where we might never recover. Western Maryland has the potential to become a viable, healthy part of our state. Slot machines, however, would ensure that we remain an economic and social burden to Maryland’s taxpayers. Please help us keep slot machines OUT of Western Maryland.

Thank you.