Wednesday, March 12, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
"Casino gambling is not at all inevitable in Massachusetts," Harshbarger said Tuesday at a news conference with gambling opponents from six states.
"It is going to be defeated through grassroots efforts by people like the ones in this room," he said.
"The only thing driving the debate in this state is the insatiable greed of an industry seeking to open the floodgates to expanded gambling in every corner of Massachusetts, and in every New England state," he said.
"If people want to gamble, whether at Foxwoods (a Connecticut casino) or on the lottery, they already have that option. Massachusetts doesn't need to make it any easier for people to be separated from their pay checks," Harshbarger said.
Proponents of gambling in Massachusetts say nearly one-third of patrons of Foxwoods Resort & Casino in Ledyard, Conn. are from Massachusetts.
The Wampanoag Indian tribe wants to build a gambling casino in the New Bedford area, and the owners of the state's four racetracks want to put 700 slot machines in each one.
Harshbarger's position on casino gambling separates him from Gov. William F. Weld and U.S. Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II.
Harshbarger plans to seek the Democratic nomination for governor next year, and may be opposed by Kennedy in that primary election. Weld, a Republican, has not ruled out seeking a third term as governor.
A legislative hearing on casino gambling is scheduled next week.
"There has been a backlash from everyday Americans who see the damage done by expanded gambling," said the Rev. Thomas Grey, executive director of the National Coalition Against Gambling, which helped defeat campaigns to expand gambling in New York and New England.
"But it's the politicians, fed by donations from gambling interests, who are pushing casinos. So what we're trying to do is hold the politicians accountable to the people," Grey said at the news conference.
Groups opposed to gambling exaggerate the social costs of gambling, "multiplying one imaginary number by another imaginary number to get a very large imaginary number," Dean W. Hestermann, research director for Harrah's Entertainment, one of the largest casino operators in the country, told the Boston Herald.
"Folks like Tom Grey come at gambling from a moral perspective," he said.
"They think there's something better you can do with your money, and therefore fire and brimstone must descend on places that have casino gambling. It's just not true," he said.
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