Top-of-the ticket Republican candidates for governor in Massachusetts have lined up behind the proposed repeal of the state’s casino law. Charlie Baker is only in favor of putting it on the ballot but Tea Party candidate Mark Fisher would go the whole way and repeal gambling in Massachusetts, if it were up to him. ““I’m still chewing on that. But I do think it belongs before the voters,” Baker told a reporter.
Fisher’s stance is surprising in the respect that Attorney General Martha Coakley (a Democratic candidate for governor) struck it from the ballot as an unconstitutional use of eminent domain. But he doesn’t like casinos and that trumps all other considerations. In a somewhat opaque statement, he said left-leaning politicians favored casinos because “they can’t bring real jobs, manufacturing and otherwise, to the state.” Shades of whack job Sharron Angle! Since when are casino jobs not “real”?
Baker favors having one casino in the state but, as for the repeal question, says casino developers were taking a calculated risk when they applied for licenses … $85 million worth of calculated risk.
* New Jersey lawmakers are contemplating a cosmetic measure whereby people wanting to self-exclude themselves from casinos would not have to 
declare themselves as problem gamblers. Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey Executive Director Donald Weinbaum supports the bill, though. “This is an option for people who are thinking about whether they have a problem, perhaps trying to buy time, as well as those who do know they have a problem,” he testified. “It has become clear over the years that the need to affirmatively declare is actually a barrier. People we’ve been in touch with are thinking. They’re not sure what they want to call themselves.” (Already 20% of the self-excluded are Internet players.)
Weinbaum’s clinching argument is that a similarly lenient self-exclusion rule in Pennsylvania received more sign-ups in one year than New Jersey has had in 10. The bill now goes to the state Senate, where it bids fair to pass.
