By Barnet D. Wolf
Despite the rising number of casinos across the country, fewer Ohioans visited them in 2003 than during the previous two years.
An annual survey of gambling in the United States found that 19 percent -- 1.54 million -- of the state's adults visited a casino at least once last year, down from 19.7 percent in 2002 and 21.9 percent in 2001.
The study, commissioned by Las Vegas-based casino company Harrah's Entertainment Inc., determined that the average Ohioan who gambles made three trips to a casino last year -- the same number as in the previous two years.
The statistics for Ohio, as with the nation in general, "show a relatively mature industry," said Harrah's spokesman Dean Hestermann. "There are not that many new (gambling) jurisdictions in the last few years." He said the state's weak economy could be a factor, because fewer people have the needed disposable income.
But the Rev. John Edgar, pastor of United Methodist Church for All People, in Columbus, and a longtime gambling opponent, said the figures reflect the likelihood that people stop visiting casinos over time because they lose.
"For gambling to expand its market ... it needs more people," he said. Ohio's population, however, has grown less than 4 percent since the beginning of the decade, according to U.S. Census statistics.
Some of Ohio's legal gambling is down, too. Betting at the state's seven horse-racing tracks is off 7 percent so far this year, and statewide bingo receipts changed little.
But Ohio Lottery ticket sales jumped 3.7 percent to $2.15 billion during the fiscal year that ended June 30, the highest level in six years. So far this year, sales are 5.4 percent ahead of a year ago.
How many Ohioans gamble online is anyone's guess.
"No matter how you look at it, Ohio's still a big gambling state," said Frank Fahrenkopf, president of the American Gaming Association, a trade organization for the nation's commercial casinos. "The interest is just as high as it's ever been."
Nationally, the number of commercial, Indian and racetrack casinos rose slightly last year, and the pace could pick up in 2005 with the expected addition of video-slot machines at several sites in Pennsylvania as early as next year.
Last summer, Pennsylvania's legislature approved as many as 60,000 slot machines at more than a dozen sites across the state. That means every state adjoining Ohio, except Kentucky, will have casino-style gambling.
West Virginia has video slots, Indiana has riverboat casinos, and Michigan has corporate- and Indian-owned land-based casinos. Other casinos within two hours of the Ohio state lines are in western New York and Canada.
The expansion of casino gambling in nearby states has led to a debate in Ohio during recent years as to whether the state should permit racetrack owners to install video slots, as West Virginia has.
Bids to get the issue on the ballot have not been successful. Efforts in the 1990s to allow riverboat casinos in Ohio failed.
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