California Dreamin’ at the Slot Machines
A giant crane rises above the Pechanga Resort & Casino in Temecula, a grand gaming hall that’s expanding as we speak. They’re adding more casino floor space and erecting another parking garage to accommodate even more losers.
“So it’s going good,” I said to an employee.
“It’s going good,” he said with a smile.
Now I know what people are doing with their vehicle license fee savings.
It’s none of my business what people do with their money, of course. But as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s team negotiates with the tribes, trying to get a cut of their $4 billion to $6 billion in annual earnings in return for expansion rights, someone should ask if we really ought to encourage more gambling.
Inside the Pechanga, the hobbled hordes were unstoppable. I don’t know if you’ve been to a tribal casino lately, but go in the middle of the day and you see battalions of seniors with crutches, walkers, canes and wheelchairs.
It’s as if they’re in a trance, on their way to a faith healing.
You’ve got young, able-bodied people too, which makes you wonder what kind of jobs they’ve got. Or are they here to drop unemployment checks?
A woman named Patricia came roaring across the casino floor in a wheelchair, one leg extended straight out in front of her in a splint. You’d think that, in that awkward position, there’s no way to play a slot machine. But Patricia tossed a chair out of the way and came in side-saddle.
“Nothing could stop you, could it?” I said.
“I can do anything you can do,” Patricia responded as she reached up to play the 5-cent Leprechaun’s Gold slot machine.
“I got shot in the leg four times in Compton 17 years ago,” Patricia said. “It was an AK-47.”
She said she gets by on disability and Section 8 housing.
Like I said, it ain’t my money. But actually, I guess it is.
Are we losing twice here, I wondered? We pay taxes for people in need, they drop it into a slot machine, and the Indians don’t give any of it back.
Patricia shook her head when I asked if she was gambling her disability check. “This is my boyfriend’s money,” she said.
It’s the seniors, though, that really put on a show.
They move in slow motion until they plant themselves in front of the slots, and then watch out. You’ve never seen Social Security checks, IRA accounts and the grandchildren’s inheritance disappear so fast.
If the tribes were smart, they’d loosen up the slots, which appear to be tighter than the doors of a bank vault. I found a lot of cranky losers when I asked gamblers if they think the casinos should kick some of their winnings back to the state.
I polled seven people and the vote was unanimous for kicking a percentage of the house winnings over to the state.
“I suppose you could say that we took the land away from them, but that was a long time ago,” said Frances Gootman, who took the bus to Pechanga with a senior group from the San Fernando Valley.
“I never realized there were so many tribes,” said her pal, Lisa Nelson, who raised an eyebrow.
Yeah, when it came time for the white man to pay for his sins, a lot of people discovered they had Native American blood.
Gootman, whom I spoke to in the hotel lobby, made it clear that she shouldn’t be lumped in with the problem gamblers who limped past us on their way to the casino. She came for the outing, and sure, she played some video poker, but not for long.
“I made four-of-a-kind, and I ran,” she said of her $25 windfall. “There’s someone with an oxygen tank in there, and she’s a danger to everyone. She could blow the place up. I wouldn’t come here if I were on crutches or a walker or oxygen. You’ve got to realize your limits at a certain point in your life.”
Yes, and speaking of knowing when to fold’ em, the casinos seem to realize they aren’t playing a particularly strong hand these days.
As California bleeds, the virtually unregulated tribes rake in billions and pay next to nothing to state or local government, while tribes in other states pay up to a quarter of their winnings.
For that, we can thank the great pale-face Gray Davis -- the money hound who chased after campaign wampum and then lay down like a reservation mutt.
But Gov. Schwarzenegger is a shrewder operator than Davis, and he’s got a weapon that strikes fear into the tribes. If they don’t fork over enough of their winnings, Schwarzenegger can back an initiative that would bring slot machines to horse tracks and card rooms.
The tribes feel the heat, which is why the Agua Caliente band just proposed an initiative that would surrender 8.84% of tribal winnings to the state.
Thanks, Agua Caliente, but no thanks.
That’s not enough dough and, worst of all, the initiative would allow tribes to build as many casinos as they want and do as they please without state intervention for 99 years.
We don’t need the sprawl, the traffic, the environmental damage, the slots or the legions of fools that initiative would spawn -- saps dependent on government bailouts after they hit rock bottom at the blackjack table.
On my way out of Pechanga, I met a couple from La Verne. She broke even. He lost.
“I always lose,” he said.
Should the casinos pay their fair share? I asked.
“Of course,” said the man’s wife. “They keep taking money from idiots like us, so they ought to pay something.”
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Steve Lopez writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at steve.lopez@latimes.com.
