The odds of SC legalizing more gambling could change with next governor

COLUMBIA — Whether South Carolina legalizes sports betting, authorizes a casino, or welcomes back video gaming could come down to who replaces Gov. Henry McMaster in the Governor’s Mansion.

In a crowded gubernatorial field of three Democrats and five Republicans, gambling provides voters a distinction between candidates on each party’s primary ballot.

Just one candidate left in the race supports opening a casino in South Carolina. Three other Republicans and a Democrat oppose the idea, though one of those Republicans is open to all other types of wagers.

A second pair — one from each party — wants to ask voters what they support.

Whoever wins in November can’t write or change the state’s anti-gambling laws unilaterally. But the governor’s support or opposition could determine which proposals — if any — become law.

The gambling industry is betting on a governor who at least won’t continue standing in the way.

Decades of turnover since the legal end of video poker — what Gov. David Beasley called the “crack cocaine of gambling” — has shifted the Legislature’s anti-gambling mindset, and lobbying to legalize various forms of gambling is expected to intensify.

Last year, a GOP-sponsored bill allowing a casino off Interstate 95 made it to the House floor with bipartisan support. A floor vote never happened. House Republicans agreed in January to send it back to committee, effectively killing it, rather than draw controversy in an election year for a bill that was certain to die anyway.

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But Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, has already pledged to reintroduce the legislation next session.

It might face better odds without a governor’s guaranteed veto.

When asked about gambling in the first GOP gubernatorial debate, U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman pledged to “fight” any casino, then suggested his opponents are taking gambling money.

Candidates’ latest campaign filings show that both Attorney General Alan Wilson, who opposes a casino, and Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, who didn’t attend the debate and hasn’t specified her position, had received more than $20,000 from the developer of that proposed casino either directly or through his various companies. That’s less than 1 percent of their campaigns’ total fundraising haul.

The developer, Wallace Cheves of Greenville, declined to comment for this article.

One other Republican received a single donation of $3,500, the state’s per-donor maximum for an election cycle. But state Sen. Josh Kimbrell, who conditionally supports a casino, dropped out of the race Wednesday.

Evette also received $1,500 from Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby, the first race of U.S. Triple Crown thoroughbred horse racing.

Support for a casino

Democrat Billy Webster told the SC Daily Gazette he supports a casino opening in South Carolina — but only one, if it’s an economic booster to a poor, rural area that needs jobs.

His support is contingent on the state and county benefiting and having the roads, water and sewer infrastructure to handle an influx of tourism.

Webster also said he’s aware of concerns about opening a casino in an impoverished area, making gambling more accessible to those who can least afford it. But, he said, similar arguments were made in 2000, when voters approved a state lottery to fund college scholarships.

While Kimbrell is no longer in the running, his position indicates he’d be a “yes” vote on the Senate floor.

“I don’t think most folks, and I don’t either, want it in heavily populated areas that already have lots of other industry,” the Spartanburg County Republican told the SC Daily Gazette. “But a low-income area that’s lower on industrial opportunities makes sense.”

The opposition

Adamantly opposed to a casino are Republicans Norman and Rom Reddy, as well as Democrat Mullins McLeod, who called it a hotbed for crime and human trafficking.

Wilson similarly said he “could never be against the faith community and the law enforcement community when it comes to this.”

“They have great concerns about brick-and-mortar casinos coming here, because we have seen in other states that it brings criminal elements,” he said during the first GOP debate in April. “Whatever revenue you generate on the front side could be offset by what you pay on the backside.”

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As for online forms of gambling, Wilson said technology makes it hard to stop, but he’d be willing to look into it.

In an interview with the SC Daily Gazette, Reddy went into detail on why he opposes a casino.

He said he became aware of the tie between casinos and trafficking through his family charitable foundation’s work on women and children’s issues.

“These casinos and the surrounding lodging … there’s a just a meaningful amount of sex trafficking in general, but unfortunately, a predominant amount of that is sex trafficking of minors,” he said.

Positioning them close to the interstate makes transporting victims across state lines easy, he said.

“They place them in poor areas, very similar to what South Carolina is trying to do,” Reddy said. “They call it economic infrastructure, which is all a hoax, just to cover up what they do.”

Outside of the casino, however, Reddy is not opposed to other forms of virtual gambling, such as sports betting.

“I really don’t care if you gamble,” he said. “You can do whatever the heck you want. I’m not any type of moral police. I do believe we have a moral obligation to protect those who cannot protect themselves, but if you’re an adult, I’m not going to babysit you.”

‘Let everybody be heard’

Casino proponents have said the development would bring thousands of jobs, billions in investment, and it would only be built in one of three counties with that county council’s express support.

Evette told the Daily Gazette she agrees with McMaster that there are better ways for communities to raise funds than through gambling. But unlike McMaster, she has not completely shut the door on the issue.

“I’m not really for it,” she said. “I just think that it’s good to let everybody be heard.”

In an interview and a follow-up statement to the Gazette, Evette would not directly say whether she would support or veto legislation allowing a casino.

“In South Carolina, we definitely don’t want to see giant buildings full of gambling machines that attract the worst aspects of society and prey on vulnerable people,” Evette said, on the one hand.

But she followed that with a statement encouraging deference to communities: “When it comes to facilities and businesses that are going to be net positive and attract economic stimulus in local communities, I say what I say for most things: we need to listen to the people in that local community and allow them to weigh in on such decisions.”

As for other forms of gambling, Evette said she’s willing to entertain arguments in favor of virtual wagering on horse races to support the state’s equine industry.

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Bills legalizing that have failed repeatedly in the last few years.

Two other candidates said voters should decide.

Rep. Jermaine Johnson, a Democrat, and U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, a Republican, both suggested putting the issue to voters on the ballot to decide if and what form of gambling to allow.

Mace pointed out people are already placing bets in South Carolina through what are known as prediction markets. This form of gambling was recently legalized nationwide under federal law.

Johnson, whose own father struggled with a gambling addiction that left his family homeless, said he’d support whatever the people decide but not without guardrails.

The 2001 law that created the state lottery required the Legislature to direct some of the unclaimed prize money annually toward combatting gambling addictions. As in previous years, this year’s budget designates $100,000 for those services.

If more gambling is legalized, whether a casino or racetrack betting, the state must invest in programs combating the darker side of the industry, such as addiction and human and drug trafficking, Johnson said.

A legislative shift

The Legislature’s aversion to gambling proposals stems from a video poker industry that snuck in through the back door in the form of a two-word budget amendment in 1986.

The amendment erased “or property” from an obscure state law. It passed without any debate and without legislators truly understanding what they had done: legalized video gambling.

Legislators tried to battle back the industry, which skyrocketed to about 34,000 machines at its peak, by banning big jackpots and limiting operators to five machines in each “premises.” But the industry just found new workarounds, such as putting dozens of machines into a building subdivided into five-machine rooms.

Some saw this session’s push for various gambling proposals as the industry testing the waters, knowing the legislative dynamic was shifting and McMaster was term-limited.

Almost half of the state’s 46 senators — 22 — were not in the upper chamber a decade ago. And nearly two-thirds of the House has turned over in that time.

In all, only 15 members of the General Assembly would have been in office when video poker was legal, three of them coming in the final year of the game’s reign.

Sen. Chip Campsen, a long-time gambling opponent dating back to what he called video poker’s “Wild West” days, expects the gaming industry will return in full force next year with a new round of proposals.

“Just look at the lobby,” the Isle of Palms Republican said. “There were probably 20 people out there pushing this this session.”

Gov. Beasley openly declared war on video poker, using his 1998 State of the State address to call for its ban. But his bully pulpit efforts failed, as the industry spent millions of dollars to help oust him later that year.

It took an eventual ruling from the state Supreme Court to finally vanquish video poker in 2000.

“It destroyed people’s lives and we had to fight tooth and nail to get rid of it, and it will come right back,” Campsen warned.