If you figure that the best money the state receives is money that people voluntarily hand it, well, you gotta figure that it’s time for some repairs to the state’s gambling law.

Remember two years ago when it was passed, everyone thought that we’d have four brand spanking new, glitzy casinos abuilding by now?

There were likely, then, we thought, to be at least three combination horse/dog tracks with hundreds of adjoining slot machines?

The concept was that those enterprises would spin out hundreds of millions of dollars for the state—all from people who gladly ponied up their money for a chance to win big.

Well, it’s all gone south, and legislators are now considering either reworking the state gambling law or maybe just repealing it—mostly.

Mostly, because the only real gaming effort in the state now is the construction of a casino in historic Dodge City, an out-of-the-way little casino that is going to be popular and  undoubtedly profitable, but on a smaller scale than mega casinos considered for Wyandotte, Crawford/Cherokee and Sumner counties.

Here’s the real trick: in a slow economy, if the state wants to get revenue fast, it has to come from slots at tracks, so-called “racinos.”

The tracks are there, but they’re shut down because racing alone won’t support the enterprises. Slots? That would be the key, but the state’s share of the take from those slots at tracks is 40 percent, and the canny owners of the tracks have penciled it out and they can’t make any money with that large a state take-out of the profits.

So, you just renegotiate that 40 percent? Figure that maybe 25 percent of something is better than 40 percent of nothing?

Well, it’s rarely that simple in the Statehouse.

Remember that the casino/racino bill passed by just two votes, and remember that many of those same legislators are back in the Capitol now, and nobody’s sure if the narrow issue of reducing the state’s take from racinos would pass or fail… But, everyone is sure that any bill dealing with the racinos has the possibility of seeing the whole gaming enterprise being repealed.

That’s a big risk for those who like racinos, and it’s a big opportunity for those who don’t want the state to have any fingerprints on any sort of gambling.

Will the current budget crunch lead some gaming opponents to hold their noses and vote yes for lower, but at least some, revenues? Or, would it be a forum for some to pontificate that in these economic times, people shouldn’t be gambling away their money for food or their children’s shoes?

This might be one of those smaller issues that lawmakers could consider while the bigger and ultimately vital scraps continue over the state’s budget and deficit.