Friday, July 16, 2010

Gamers play one more hand with Perdue

The video sweepstakes guys aren't giving up. Despite the N.C. General Assembly's overwhelming vote to ban the internet sweepstakes games, they took their cause to Gov. Bev Perdue today - in a hand-delivered letter.

In the letter, they asked Gov. Bev to veto the bill that would ban gaming, saying it would put 10,000 workers statewide out of jobs. They say Perdue should “send the issue back to the General Assembly to review next year legislation that would regulate and tax video gaming.”

The letter, signed by Entertainment Group NC President William Thevaos, says the ban “has the potential to add an additional burden of more than $2 million per week in new unemployment benefits that these citizens will need if this law goes into effect.” It also said that at a time of financial crisis in state government, walking away from potential revenue that doesn’t involve a tax hike is unwise. “Next year’s budget projections are even worse than this year. According to published news reports, the state is eyeing a $3 billion deficit or even more,” states the letter.
“A regulated video gaming industry could provide more than $576 million in new revenue to the state without raising taxes,” says the letter, citing data from the NC Education Lottery released in May.

Don't expect the plea to do much good. These are the same arguments the gamers made before and during the legislative session. They didn't sway Perdue then, and the governor's press secretary said Wednesday she is expected to sign the law.

2 comments:

Garth Vader said...

These gamers must know that the mafia doesn't like competition and that Bev Corleone is determined to make them sleep with the fishes.

gplaw said...

They say "tax us" so some townsships in the state did and the operators in turned sued the citys. So much for tax us. The state tried to regulate these machines before the 2006 ban to payouts of $10.00 per day, how did that go guys? Where are all these jobs that will be lost most of these things are add on to other business which may add one employee. The other store fronts that have opened everywhere opened though a loophole in the law. they new that when they made that investment so how can they even have a voice. they took that