SHEFA backs postponing poker relocation

The Saipan Higher Education Financial Assistance, which gets its scholarship money from poker license renewals, supports moving the relocation of poker businesses on Saipan to a later date.

SHEFA said that not doing so would devastate the thousands of students that rely on it to fund their college education.

Under the law, poker parlors only have until the end of this year to relocate to Garapan.

House Bill 20-12, introduced by Rep. John Paul Sablan (R-Saipan), seeks to extend this deadline by two more years, or until 2019.

Saipan Local Law 18-05 gave poker arcades four years to relocate to an Adult Business Park in Garapan. Since SLL 18-05 was enacted in 2013, that means poker parlors only have until the end of 2017 to relocate to an Adult Business Park that has yet to be identified at this point.

HB 20-12 was proposed last Friday during a session of the Saipan and Northern Islands Legislative Delegation. According to SHEFA, it receives a significant amount of fees from revenue generated from these gaming arcades.

According to comments by SHEFA chair Oscar Babauta, the program’s only source of funding comes from the renewal of the licenses of these gaming arcades. If HB 20-12 were not passed, it would alter the SHEFA program as it would lose its only means of funding.

“To allow the deadline to take effect would be devastating to SHEFA and most especially to the thousands of students that rely on the financial assistance they receive each semester from SHEFA to complete their studies,” Babauta wrote in his comments.

SHEFA currently gets $3 million a year from the funds collected from these game rooms. The $3 million is appropriated to qualified students.

According to Babauta, an average of over a thousand students obtain financial assistance from SHEFA in the last five years (2012-2017).

One of the biggest concerns SHEFA faces is that if their only source of funding is cut, students who receive assistance from their program may be forced to drop out and will delay the process of getting their degrees or certificates.

According to Babauta, moving poker rooms to permitted zones is a good idea. However, he just asks that the relocation period be extended as game rooms have only a few more months left to relocate.

Without a substitute funding source, the number of conforming poker game rooms won’t be able to subsidize the thousands of students who depend on the funds SHEFA provides for them, Babauta said.

“There is just no way that only 10 conforming game rooms can meet the education financial assistance needed for our over 1,000 students who rely and depend on the supplemental assistance they receive from SHEFA,” wrote Babauta.

The discussion of the bill was delayed, but according to Sablan, it will continue at the next delegation session.