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Gambling proponents in New Hampshire are calling for slot machines at Rockingham Park.  According to them, slot machines have the potential to bring as much as $200 million into state coffers each year.

According to the pro slot machines group, “Fix It Now New Hampshire”, of lawmakers legalized slot machines in New Hampshire before June of 2006, Rockingham Park could have its slot machines up, running, and generating revenue within seven months.

Millennium Gaming still has the option to buy Rockingham Park.  If slot machines are legalized in New Hampshire Millennium will not only buy the park, located in Salem, they will begin a two-year $450 million renovation to the racing facility.  Millennium currently only operates one racino, located in Pennsylvania, but the company owns three casinos in Las Vegas.

Not everyone in New Hampshire supports slot machines.  Opponents of slot machines have blasted the Rockingham Park plan as “the same tired and discredited arguments.”  They are convinced that both the economy and small businesses will suffer in the presence of slot machines and gambling expansion is a sure way to increase crime and problem gambling.

The ability to raise funds with expanded gambling operations has not yet been truly put to the test in New Hampshire.  Several gambling measures have been proposed in the state legislature but not one bill has gotten past the House. 

President of Rockingham Park, Ed Callahan, said slot machines could be “a reliable and sustainable source of revenue and a critical part of a solution to the budget shortfall this year and in years go come.”

According to Callahan’s estimates, with slot machines, 70 of customers to the Rockingham Park would come from outside of New Hampshire.

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