State considers Bush plan on collecting child support

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- For years, Missouri officials have been unable to develop a good way to identify casino gamblers who owe child support and seize their winnings. But a new federal proposal might do the job.

The Bush administration wants to require that the names of people who win more than $5,000 be run through a national locator service already used by the IRS, state lotteries and other government agencies to keep track of people who owe money.

The proposal would require congressional approval.

Beginning in the late 1990s, the Missouri Gaming Commission began considering a state collection system for deadbeat parents who gamble in the state.

Kevin Mullally, the commission's executive director, said Friday that after four years of review the state found that such a system would not be "financially feasible" in Missouri.

Mullally said the Missouri Division of Child Support Enforcement tested the idea two years ago. After examining winners of jackpots bigger than $5,000 during a period of a few weeks, only one deadbeat parent was found.

"It would cost more to implement a system than what you would actually recover," Mullally said.

Currently, the federal government can garnish lottery prizes, but it cannot garnish money won by child support offenders at casinos, horse tracks, keno parlors, jai alai arenas and off-track betting parlors. Missouri has gambling only on riverboat casinos.

The federal government estimates it would cost about $40 million to establish a secure Web-based system allowing gambling establishments to check government-provided lists of people who owe money.

Gary Bailey, Missouri's director of child support enforcement, said the proposed national database would help locate not only those already living and gambling in Missouri who owe child support, but also those gambling out of state.

"I would say we are watching it with cautious optimism," Bailey said of Bush's proposal. "We believe it is the right thing to do. I believe this is something the state could work with."

The Missouri Lottery is one example of how a similar system can work.

Gary Gonder, a lottery spokesman, said the lottery conducts three background checks on people who win prizes of $5,000 or more. One check is made for taxes owed to the state, the second is for child support owed and a third is for benefits received by winners such as food stamps.

Gonder said more than $26,000 in lottery winnings were collected from deadbeat parents and distributed to custodial parents in Missouri during the fiscal year that ended last June.

Frank Fahrenkopf Jr., president of the American Gaming Association, said using casino employees to do work that is now within the strict purview of the state would set a dangerous precedent.

Still, the potential pot of money that state governments could access is huge. In 2000, Americans reported $25 billion in gambling winnings on their income tax returns.