4 March 27 - april 2, 2025 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents W hile the restrained decorum of the Texas Legisla- ture is far from the ringing arcade tones of rows and rows of slot machines, and there are cer- tainly no busty blondes to blow on your dice, the session can still be a gamble. Representatives and senators file their bills and hope for a big win, but betting on what bills will pass and what will not is, at times, risky. Bills to expand gambling bills have failed consistently session after session, but still, some Texas lawmakers push their chips in on legalizing gambling in various forms to bring the billion-dollar industry to the Lone Star State. That’s unlikely to change this session, but there are clear signs that attitudes are shifting. In years past, legalizing the lucrative vice was divisive and partisan, with big-name Re- publicans firmly against it, but as massive casino stakehold- ers take a seat at the table and put their money down, the support for large-scale gambling grows. Dallas is arguably the top city in the country for sports business, with several professional teams, including the Cowboys, which regularly ranks as the nation’s most valu- able sports franchise. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has of- fered cautious support for legal sports gambling and has said Texas is losing out on millions of dollars in revenue by not al- lowing it. Former Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has put his weight behind a push for casinos. As the economic potential begins to outweigh gambling’s stigma, a new element is helping to push the odds in favor of Texas someday expand- ing legal gaming, especially Dallas: the cops. The burden of recruiting additional police officers and guaranteeing their pension fund has enough money has be- come more urgent, thanks to a recently approved ballot proposition. If the Legislature could be persuaded to act, Dallas could follow other cities with legalized gambling and use millions of dollars in tax revenue to make ends meet. In 2024, against the advice of the City Council, Dallas vot- ers narrowly approved Proposition U, a City Charter amend- ment that requires the council to add 900 officers to Dallas’ police ranks and maintain a total of 4,000 officers. The propo- sition also requires 50% of any new city revenue to go directly to police and fire pensions until they are fully funded. The Dallas Police Department receives the most signifi- cant portion of the city’s $5 billion annual budget, approxi- mately 38%, or $1.9 billion. Still, following the passage of Proposition U, the brass faces an uphill battle to meet the new officer quota while simultaneously keeping the number of overtime hours within budget. This feat has proved diffi- cult for the department, and in 2024, the force estimated it would exceed its overtime allotment by $13 million. How- ever, the most significant strain on the budget is the pension, which was $4 billion short as of September. Dallas needs an instant economic boost in the face of a potential budget crisis brought upon by Proposition U and the existing pension debt, and some City Council members are considering tax revenue from casino gambling as a possi- ble solution. The irony is that several studies have linked le- gal casino gambling to increased crime rates, meaning the very thing the city might turn to in order to hire more cops could also make hiring them necessary. While other cities have successfully used tax revenue to bolster public safety, the results can vary and some powerful Dallasites don’t con- sider it a feasible solution. Dallas’ history includes an illustrious roster of wealthy families with skyscraping buildings and art museums in their portfolios. Now, a new cast of plutocrats is influencing the city’s culture by taking hold of the Big D’s robust sports scene, and the most prominent of those are looking to make Dallas the destination for all types of big winners. “It seems very logical that cities could utilize gambling revenue to supplement the police budget or, in our case, the pension,” Dallas City Council member Chad West said. “We’ve got to look at all potential revenue sources to shore up the pension, and this is a really easy one.” When casino tycoon and billionaire Miriam Adelson scooped up the Dallas Mavericks and hundreds of acres of land in Dallas’ Design District and near the site of the former Texas Stadium in Irving, fit for a resort-style casino, the city began to debate whether Dallas could become the next Sin City. At an economic development committee meeting, council member Adam Bazaldua suggested that casino reve- nue could help the city manage its ever-growing multi-bil- lion dollar police and fire pension shortfall. “I see this as a huge, missed opportunity if we don’t tap into a new statewide source of revenue for police and fire pension,” Bazaldua said at the meeting in early 2024. Dallas Police Department Needs Money D espite progressively increasing funding year over year, the Dallas Police Department has struggled with staff- ing, attrition and its pension fund. Until recently, a city ordinance from 1988 required three police officers per 1,000 residents. According to The Dallas Morning News, the city has only come close to this ratio a few times in almost 40 years. DPD endured an exodus in the mid-2010s when the pension debt was only $3 billion and benefits were facing cuts. At its height in 2011, the depart- ment had 3,700 sworn officers. The force now has around 3,100 officers serving 1.3 million Dallasites, throwing off the ratio, and the city’s population has only continued to rise. Desperate to recruit more officers, the city began offering a $1,000 bonus for police officers who referred and re- cruited new members. While recruitment remains a nation- wide issue, retention issues deepen the blows in Dallas because even if the city could recover the losses sustained in the mid-2010s, there’s no promise it could keep new officers on the force. Retention has become such a pressure point that in 2023, the city began offering a $40,000 incentive for officers who clock 30 years with the department. In light of understaffing, response times are slow, but in the November election, what seemed like a remedy to the years-long battle reached voters. “It is time to restore Dallas Police Department to historic ratios of officers to citizens, which means hiring roughly 1,000 new police officers with priority — not 500 police offi- cers over the next decade as our interim city manager cur- rently proposes,” reads the Proposition U explanation on the website of Dallas HERO, the group behind getting the mea- sure on the ballot. “Dallas city leaders have prioritized pet projects and wasteful spending while public safety has eroded, collapsing whole communities and making victims out of our residents. We need more police, and we need to give them the resources needed to do their job and do it safely.” A coalition of former mayors and council members joined ranks to oppose the proposition. While it appeared to in- crease city safety, experts advised that the proposed increase to the force would limit resources and crush the city budgets for anything other than cops. | UNFAIR PARK | Brian Maschino >> p6 A BET ON THE POLICE? Can legalized casino gambling create the cash flow Dallas needs to meet its new hiring and pension mandates? By Alyssa Fields Dallas needs a cash boost with the passing of Prop U. Would gambling help to pay for police recruits and pensions?
