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Petro Says Odds Very Long for Casino Gambling in Ohio
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The odds of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe building a casino in Lordstown -- or anywhere else in Ohio -- grew a lot longer Tuesday when the state's attorney general weighed in with his opinion.Jim Petro, considered the Republican front-runner to become the state's next governor, said any Native American tribe that wishes to establish casino gabling in Ohio would face many legal obstacles and a very long, arduous and expensive process. Just last week the Eastern Shawnee Tribe announced plans to build, at minimum, a $125 million gambling resort on a 137-acre site near the Ohio Turnpike interchange at Lordstown. The tribe said it hopes to build as many as nine casino resorts in Ohio -- employing a few thousand workers at each facility.Petro's statement came in response to a request by the Ohio Roundtable to investigate the actions of local governments attempting to form agreements with Native American tribes to set up casinos.Wrote Petro in a letter to the Ohio Roundtable, "I want to express to you and to your organization my personal opposition to the further expansion of gambling in Ohio. The social ills that unrestricted gambling would cause far outweigh any incidental economic benefits the construction and operation of these casinos may bring," the attorney general stated."Despite the optimistic pronouncements of the Eastern Shawnee and their representatives that these casinos are coming soon, given current Ohio law and my opposition, the governor's opposition and the General Assembly's likely opposition to casino gambling, I am confident that we will not see casino gambling in Ohio for the foreseeable future."Petro said once a local government actually enters into a compact with an American Indian tribe to share profits from casino gambling, he would rule on the agreement's constitutionality. Here are some of the legal obstacles, he said, that any tribe would face :Obtaining federal recognition as an Ohio Indian tribe;Establishing "Indian lands" in Ohio;Changing Ohio's Constitution to permit all forms of Class III gambling; Negotiating a compact with the state of Ohio that would have to be approved by both the governor and the General Assembly.Currently, there are no federally recognized Indian tribes in Ohio, nor are there any "Indian lands" in Ohio as defined in the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, Petro noted. Moreover, the federal processes to obtain tribal recognition and to establish "Indian lands" would take years to complete.A spokesman for the Eastern Shawnee Tribe, Terry Casey, said an analysis of the economic impact of the casino projects -- including possible social costs and the benefits to the state as well as those realized from retaining gambling dollars going to other states -- should be completed in a few months. In the meantime, the tribe is lobbying state legislators and working to rally public opinion. "