You might think legalizing casino gambling in Kentucky is the best way to solve the state's chronic financial ills.
You may believe that casinos are an amoral abomination, a drain on society that preys on those who can least afford to lose money.
Or maybe you couldn't care less about casinos, slots, Texas Hold 'Em, blackjack, win, drop and rolling them bones.
But no matter which camp you fall into, you need to know this: 2006 is shaping up to be the year when casino gambling in Kentucky is either legalized or vanquished.
The legal opinion issued last week by Attorney General Greg Stumbo - casinos can be approved by the legislature without a vote of the people - may or may not stand as to how the General Assembly deals with the issue.
At the very least, Stumbo's opinion gives gambling proponents a clear path that can be taken to allow casinos. Any such move in that direction could easily be rebuffed by a majority of the General Assembly. And even if a bill gets through the legislature and is signed into law by Gov. Ernie Fletcher, a court challenge to the legality of approving gambling without voter consent certainly awaits.
And backers of casinos can always fall back on legislation that would place the issue before the voters through a statewide constitutional amendment. But Stumbo's opinion is part of an orchestrated and well-planned effort to build bipartisan support for casinos.
Another step was the formation of KEEP, short for Kentucky Equine Education Project.
Led by former Gov. Brereton Jones, a horse breeder, KEEP is spending $1.2 million on an ad campaign to show the horse industry's impact on Kentucky's economy, history and culture.
The effort will eventually morph into a call for racinos - the term for casinos at horse tracks - as a way for the industry to compete with gambling in other states.
Even those lawmakers ardently opposed to gambling may eventually warm to giving voters the final say on the issue.
That's because when lawmakers head back to Frankfort in January, deficits loom in the state and Medicaid budgets. And the estimated $400 million that gambling taxes could generate may be too much for legislators to resist when teachers want raises, constituents want roads, university presidents want more cash and nobody wants their services cut or their taxes raised.
There is also a growing sense that Kentucky could wait too long and miss out on the gambling boom.
Ohio is interested, Pennsylvania and Florida just approved it and West Virginia and Indiana are expanding it.
There's no such thing as a sure thing, but it's a safe assumption that gambling will be the major issue of the 2006 session.
