Backers Poised To Roll The Dice On Riverboat Betting A Bill Calling For A Referendum Is In The Works. The Payoff? Tax Cuts And Extra Funding, Supporters Say.

HARRISBURG — A lower Philadelphia wage tax. More money for senior citizen programs. A special fund to help reduce property taxes.

Sound good?

It could all become reality, if only a majority of Pennsylvanians will do one little thing - say OK to riverboat gambling.

Legislation being worked on for introduction before the Christmas holiday seeks not only to push the issue onto the House floor, but for the first time to detail who would benefit from riverboat revenues. The targeted groups, perhaps not so coincidentally, seem to have a history of turning out to vote.

The prospects of riverboat gambling in Pennsylvania still look remote, but its proponents are a pesky and well-financed bunch.

Some felt the best opportunity for passing a statewide voter referendum slipped away with the recent election, but that may not have been the case.

With appellate judgeships the only statewide elections this year, a low turnout had been expected in the conservative hinterlands, while there were hotly contested elections in Allegheny County and a mayor's race in Philadelphia, both places where riverboat gambling appears most wanted.

The thinking was that a suppressed rural Republican vote combined with high turnout among Democrats in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh could mean passage for floating casinos.

Think again.

Turnout turned out to be low in Philadelphia, where Mayor Rendell ran up an easy reelection victory, and Democrats lost political control in Allegheny County for the first time in 60 years.

Riverboat gambling was probably lucky to be off the ballot.

And there is some thought now that 1996 - an expected high turnout year for a presidential election - may afford the best opportunity for a "yes" vote on a riverboat referendum.

"The year in which the most people vote is always the presidential year. The more casual voter tends to come out in the even-number or presidential years," said Neil Oxman, president of The Campaign Group, media consultant for many Democratic campaigns, including Rendell's recent effort.

Only about 2.1 million Pennsylvania voters, or about 35 percent of those registered, cast ballots in the Nov. 7 election. In the November 1992 presidential election, nearly 5 million people voted.

In the difference lies the "casual voter" - the voter more likely to pull the lever for riverboat gambling, according to some students of politics.