From Deseret News archives:

Outside pressure: Will international deals force gambling on Utah?

Published: Thursday, June 30, 2005 10:53 a.m. MDT

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Most Utahns likely would say it is a sure bet that state officials would never legalize gambling. But international developments (and even some embryonic pressure at home) someday could make some gambling here legal — and maybe already has.

Among those pressures are:

• The World Trade Organization ruled in April that the United States cannot block other countries from offering Internet gambling to U.S. residents — even if they live in Utah and Hawaii, where all forms of gambling are technically illegal. And now the state could face a new onslaught of Internet gaming and free trade litigation from Costa Rica if the Senate approves the Central American Free Trade Agreement (see related story on A1 and A11).

• The U.S. House of Representatives passed provisions two years ago that would have allowed online betting from anywhere in the country on horse and dog racing, state lotteries and some other gambling conducted in states where they are legal. The proposal was later killed by the Senate. The Justice Department said that could have legalized such online gambling forms in Utah.

• While still a small minority, 30 percent of Utahns say in a new Deseret Morning News/KSL-TV poll that they favor legalizing gambling here. Pollster Dan Jones also says he feels that support for legalization is growing, even though it is still unpopular now, overall. Legalization could keep in state what studies say is a quarter-billion dollars that Utahns wager in neighboring states each year.

A few Utah officials want to legalize gambling. For example, Stephen Perry, the mayor of Wendover, Utah, says he would like it there to help his city compete with adjacent West Wendover, Nev., which he says attracts most of the area's tourists, businesses and revenue to be near its casinos.

Also, as recently as 1992, the horse industry helped push a referendum toward legalizing pari-mutuel betting in Utah. The proposal actually led in early polls, but heavy opposition — especially from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — eventually saw it lose by a 60 percent to 40 percent margin.

• Bingo and poker clubs now operate widely in Utah, offering video gaming and other wagering similar to what is found in casinos. Utahns can easily lose, or win, hundreds of dollars quickly in such establishments. Owners claim loopholes in the law make their operations legal, although many prosecutors disagree.

Despite these and other pressures, most officials doubt that Utah lawmakers will ever legalize gambling themselves — and expect that they would fight hard any moves to bring it to the state and would work to close any existing loopholes that make prosecution difficult.