"Cherry Masters," slot-machine-like video gambling devices tucked away in countless Hoosier bars, taverns and truck stops, hold an odd place in Indiana's political and business climate.
They are illegal, standing as one slice of the gambling pie the state has refused to condone or to tap as a source of tax revenue. Yet bar owners who risk state Excise Police raids by plugging the machines into the wall -- not to mention into their bottom line -- are candid about why they are willing to defy the law.
"Some local bars and restaurants could not survive without them," Lewis Coulter, past president of the Indiana Licensed Beverage Association, told the Muncie Star-Press this week.
In what is likely to stir emotions in 2006, Rep. Tiny Adams, D-Muncie, says he will put up a bill that would legalize video poker in bars, restaurants or clubs that sell alcohol. Adams estimates that taxes on legalized video gambling would produce $300 million each year for state and local governments.
The reaction, naturally, has been mixed. This week, House Speaker Brian Bosma acknowledged the massive underground gambling industry already going on, fretting that legalizing video poker "would be the single largest expansion of legal gaming probably in our state history."
Gov. Mitch Daniels has been mostly mum, letting his spokesmen obliquely say the issue isn't on his legislative agenda. The governor has been consistently correct, though, on one thing: Until the legislature decides otherwise, the state has an obligation to enforce the law as it's written and shut down the games where they're found.
And that's exactly what Excise Police -- an agency overseen by former Lafayette mayor and current chairman of the state Alcohol and Tobacco Commission Dave Heath -- have been doing. So aggressive has the effort been that state lawmakers in northeastern Indiana squawked to the governor this summer that the crackdown on illegal betting was uncalled for.
The chances of a gambling bill clearing the Indiana House and Senate during an election year seem remote. And while we're not quite ready to sanction legal slot machines in every restaurant, bar and club, this is a bill that deserves a real airing.
Is it time to bring video slots -- a form of entertainment and chance already playing in a tavern close to your home -- out into the open? And is it time for a state already heavily invested in gambling schemes -- the Hoosier Lottery, horse tracks and riverboats, included -- to rake in its share, too?
It's worth giving the debate a spin.
