Cincinnati Mayor Charlie Luken had a bad dream, and it's Northern Kentucky that had him spooked.

"My nightmare," Luken recently said, "is that I'm going to wake up one morning and see casinos on the Ohio River, but they're on the Kentucky side, looking at our skyline."

Rest easy, mayor. Aliens will land in Covington before casinos do.

Caught up in budget battles, social wars - limits on abortion, gay marriage bans, the Ten Commandments in schools - political power grabs and a fear of retribution from the conservative right, Kentucky lawmakers have continually passed on the opportunity to bring casinos and their millions of dollars in new tax revenue to the state.

Why would Luken or anyone else think that is going to change?

Had the legislature listened to developer Jerry Carroll in the early 1990s, it would be Covington, Owensboro, Louisville and the state tax coffers in Frankfort that would be reaping the windfall of expanded gambling. Not Indiana, where the Argosy casino in Lawrenceburg is so busy that gamblers are literally standing in line to throw their money away, and a $50 million expansion is on the horizon.

Carroll saw the potential of casinos in the heartland, but nobody listened. Now Pennsylvania, Maryland and others are preparing to jump on the gravy train of tax dollars that ride into town with casinos.

I hear the argument about social ills brought about by gambling, and the concerns are legitimate. But those are already here. Thousands of folks travel every month from Northern Kentucky to Indiana, leaving their dollars behind and bringing whatever problems they have back home.

"Morally wrong" is another cry I hear. You want to talk about so-called vice? Kentucky is a state that makes bourbon, grows tobacco and allows people to gamble at racetracks and on the lottery.

Then there's the argument that states can't depend on the revenue from gambling, that's it not a good idea to balance a budget on the backs of gamblers. Why don't we balance, or even pass, a budget first before getting into that argument?

Besides, casinos are not exactly an unproven entity. When Carroll first proposed the idea, there were few places in the country and hardly any in the heartland where gambling was legal. Now, it's ubiquitous. It's on our borders in Indiana, Illinois and West Virginia, and if Luken gets his way, it will be in Cincinnati.

"Obviously, what is happening at Argosy should be enough to make everyone scratch their head and say, 'Why aren't we getting some of this?' " Luken said.

Darn good question. Why not let the people decide? Put the issue on the ballot and see what happens. That's what representative government is about.

E-mail pcrowley@enquirer.com

Crowley interviews Kenton County Commissioner Adam Koenig this week on ICN6's "On The Record," which is broadcast daily on Insight Communications Channel 6.