A Hawaii Senate committee on Thursday approved a bill banning casino advertising in the state, but amended it to remove references to Nevada resort properties, including Las Vegas-based Boyd Gaming Corp., which has established a decades-old business to attract Hawaiians to “the ninth island.”
The Senate’s Committee on Commerce and Consumer Protection voted 3-1 to forward Sen. Stanley Chang’s Senate Bill 935, introduced Jan. 20, to the full Senate.
The recommendation came after about 15 minutes of testimony, including recommendations from several parties to strike the bill because they feared it would not withstand a constitutional challenge.
Committee Chairman Jarrett Keohokalole, D-Kane‘ohe, said an entire section of the bill would be eliminated and a new section added that would establish a tax on trips to gambling destinations to fund the treatment of Hawaii residents with gambling addictions.
