Rep. Earl Jones filed a bill Wednesday that would legalize video poker and give the state a 20 percent cut of gaming profits.
The bill would allow up to 10 machines in one establishment. Players would have to be 18 and could not bet more than $5 on a hand.
Jones, the sole sponsor of the bill, compared spending money on video poker to investing in hobbies such as golf or going to sports games. Lots of people in the state play Bingo, he said.
"I don't think people should be paternalistic because they feel like they can tell other people how to spend their money," Jones said.
Jones said the state's cut of poker money would be at least $480 million a year. Half would go to the general fund and the other half would go to education, he said.
The bill has little support in the House. Speaker Joe Hackney doesn't support it, a spokesman said. House Republican Leader Paul Stam said Thursday that the bill isn't going anywhere.
Correction: The bill was not sent to the House Rules committee as a previous version of this post indicated. It was sent to Judiciary II and then Finance.
Update: Senate leader Marc Basnight said it's too early to comment on the chances of the bill in the Senate because it hasn't cleared the House.
But a spokesman said he is not a fan of the industry.
"Video poker is the most awful form of legalized gambling their is and he cannot think of any benefit from it whatsoever and cannot imagine legalizing it," Schorr Johnson, a spokesman for Basnight said.
