NO DICE: THE BACKLASH AGAINST GAMBLING

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Now boom is giving way to backlash. In a state-by-state slugfest, grass-roots groups are battling the gambling industry in ballot referendums, court suits and local legislatures. In Louisiana the public outcry over a bribery scandal involving video poker and the bankruptcy of a planned $800 million casino in New Orleans prompted the Governor to convene the legislature in special session this week to consider an outright ban on both types of games. Last week Kansas and Maryland legislators defeated measures to allow slots at racetracks and off-track betting parlors. In the past three months nine states have turned aside efforts to introduce casinos, slots and instant-payout lottery games (which are considered particularly addictive).

Fighting back, casino companies have showered politicians with campaign contributions, hired former Governors and former U.S. attorneys as lobbyists, and poured money into television advertising. Yet "we're winning the hearts and minds of the countryside," claims Grey, whose favorite prop is a map with red, white and blue pushpins stuck into the 23 states where his National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling (NCALG) has won victories during the past two years. Only two states--Missouri and South Dakota--are marked with green pushpins to indicate a gambling win.

Meanwhile, the issue is forcing its way onto the national agenda. On March 5 the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill establishing a two-year commission to study the economic impact of gambling, the influence of gaming's political contributions, state-lottery advertising, gambling-related crime and Internet betting. "The moral, social, economic and political ramifications of gambling are far too great to go unaddressed," says Republican Representative Marge Roukema from New Jersey, a state that has the second biggest gaming industry after Nevada. "We must carefully evaluate what has become an uncontrollable epidemic that has destroyed peoples' lives and families."

Nevada Republican Representative John Ensign calls the proposed panel "a thinly veiled disguise for future regulation of the gaming industry." That has been the casinos' worst fear ever since the Clinton Administration last year floated a 4% federal gaming tax--only to drop it after 31 Governors protested. In the past three years gambling has become one of the top five industries donating to political campaigns. That money no doubt ensures some entree now that the casinos' furious lobbying campaign against the federal panel--led by former G.O.P. chairman Frank Fahrenkopf--is turned on the U.S. Senate.