Ducey got played on gambling expansion. But why?

Gov. Doug Ducey is really proud of having brought sports betting to Arizona.

In fact, his administration has worked longer and harder on this than on any issue during his governorship.

The question — indeed, the mystery — is why?

The presumption was that Ducey was aiming to bring in big bucks to the state. That would either allow increases in state expenditures without raising taxes, or fuel a tax cut — perhaps enabling a big stride toward Ducey’s 2014 pledge to reduce Arizona’s income tax to as close to zero as possible.

Instead, Ducey proposed a structure that minimizes what the state will get from allowing and licensing legal bookie operations.

Ducey’s bill authorized 20 bookie operations: 10 for Arizona’s Native American tribes, and 10 off-reservation li

censes.

However, rather than auctioning off the 10 off-reservation licenses to whichever qualified applicants offered the best deal to the state, Ducey limited the licenses to current professional sports organizations. What they pay will be negotiated with the Department of Gaming. But with limited competition, the state will receive considerably less than could have been possible.

The legislative budget staff estimates that the bill, which includes some other expansions in off-reservation gambling, will produce around an additional $34 million a year for the state’s general fund. In a $12 billion budget, that’s a rounding error.

Ducey has also agreed to a major increase in reservation gambling: more casinos, more types of games, more slots and tables.

This will also increase state revenues, but not as much as could have been the case if Ducey hadn’t been fixated on legalizing off-reservation sports betting. That requires the consent of the tribes, which reduced Ducey’s leverage in negotiating a bigger take for the state from tribal gambling.

In celebrating a major expansion of gambling in Arizona, Ducey made the strange claim that it won’t change the culture of the place — presumably a nod to, and an attempt to reassure, social conservatives.

Reservation casinos will now be full Las Vegas-style operations, no longer limited to slots and a few card games.

Our professional sports teams will now have an income stream from their bookie operations. Promotion of that will notably change the experience they create for fans, in the arena and outside it.

A large segment of fans will be focused not merely on whether the home team wins or loses, but whether it covers the spread.

The notion that this won’t affect what transpires on the field or court is naïve. Not necessarily in a corrupt way. But that meaningless shot at the end of the game won’t be so meaningless to a lot of local fans. Players and coaches are going to know that.

There will be huge advertising campaigns conducted on behalf of the new, Las Vegas-style casinos and the sports betting operations.

Pace Ducey, gambling will be a much more visible part of our culture.

Now, I’m not a puritan regarding gambling. My libertarian instincts are that these opportunities should exist.

But if the state is going to offer oligopolist gambling licenses, they should be granted in the way that maximizes the return to state coffers. Ducey didn’t propose that.

Nor did Republicans or Democrats in the Legislature insist on it. In the end, just 14 GOP legislators voted against the sports betting bill and only four Democrats.

Rather than truly leading on this issue, Ducey was played. By the professional sports teams into giving them the bookie licenses rather than making them compete for them. By the tribes, leveraging Ducey’s fixation on off-reservation sports betting into a massive increase in on-reservation gambling.

And by Democrats, whose votes were needed for passage. One Democratic senator has said that Ducey promised to let legislative Democrats allocate $90 million of discretionary federal COVID-19 response funds.

Despite all that, Ducey plainly regards the new tribal compacts and the expansion of off-reservation gambling as a big accomplishment. He held a massive, celebratory signing ceremony.

Again, the question is why? If this was Ducey’s legacy project, there’s a lot about it that really stinks.