Millennium Gaming will use all the leverage it has to get New Hampshire lawmakers to approve a scheme resulting in the installation of thousands of slot machines throughout the state.

Millennium is going as far as it can to attract lawmakers to the gaming line. They know there are lawmakers who can be pulled in by the draw of millions in gaming dollars each year. Some of them would just as soon have meetings with gamers under a 5-watt bulb in some remote spot than in the open with the public and media in attendance. They're amenable to the personal touch, but they'd prefer to keep the people and the press at more than an arm's length and on the other side of door while these talks are going on.

Some lawmakers have been courted by Millennium with a dog-and-pony show going so far as to meet with groups of them on their home turf with glowing talk of what gaming means for New Hampshire.

There is no evidence of money being slipped under the table in return for favors before and after gaming legislation is debated in committee and then on the floor of the House and Senate in early 2010. Historically, cash gifts haven't been popular among state lawmakers, but there have been alternatives in the world of working the crowd.

When people with get-rich-quick ideas for states such as New Hampshire work legislative leaders and followers, they fill their bellies instead of their pockets.

Information meetings conducted by special interests like Millennium have held such feed-and-please meeting in locations throughout the state. How effective Millennium has been is hard to determine. It won't be until sometime during the first half of next year their votes will be counted.

Rochester and Exeter have been two such sites for the meeting of lawmakers and Millennium. To our knowledge, neither of the meetings were posted, nor was Foster's Daily Democrat or other media organizations invited, at least initially, to attend. When it was discovered the public was persona non grata, there were some legislators who, figuratively speaking, rushed to cover their backsides with both hands.

The meeting in Rochester, with only a dozen of Strafford County's legislative delegation's members attending — one-third of its number — heard Millennium Gaming explain to its advantage what slots would mean on the revenue lines of the state budget.

The lawmakers who attended the meeting at Mel's Flanagan's Irish Pub Cafe were treated to small subs, pasta salad and meatballs in a crock. The price of attendance was listening to what critics of gaming might describe as an incomplete crock.

The following night, Rockingham County delegation members were treated to a session that resembled the one in Rochester only in message. The venue was the historic Exeter Inn in the community of the same name and the cuisine — seared cod with oyster mushrooms and braised lamb served on white table cloths far from the Statehouse — was a bit more upscale.

It must have been quite a scene. It's too bad the public and its representatives in the media weren't made aware of the meeting ahead of time. They could have had a wider understanding of the attempt to bring expanded gambling to New Hampshire and the extent to which some people are going to exert the effort.

The idea is to install 5,000 slot machine at Rockingham Park. Where the program goes from there is anybody's guess. The likely path is 5,000 slots at Seabrook Greyhound Park with eyes on other locations in the state — at the first-class hotels in New Hampshire.

Advocates of expanded gambling in the Granite State contend it will help ward off a state income tax or general income tax.

"We may not want to take gambling in but it's the better of all evils," said Rep. Laura Pantelakos, D-Portsmouth. "We can't hit our businesses anymore," she said. "Nobody wants an income tax. Nobody wants a sales tax.

"Well that's not true," said Rep. Tinker Russell, D-Stratham. She added the state's tax structure is not fair and the resources necessary to adequately deal with the social "repercussions" of expanded gambling aren't present.

The debate will continue and work its way into the second session of the current Legislature.

What was lost by organizers of the meeting finally allowing some light into the meeting with Millennium's co-owner, Bill Wortman? Seemingly nothing. Maybe the people developed a better understanding of what had been first intended as a cloistered gathering. It's too bad a similar opportunity wasn't afforded for the Rochester meeting.

Who knows, maybe similar meetings, with Wortman and other people, on a variety of issues will be conducted in a similar manner.

New Hampshire needs more transparency in state, county and local government — transparency that doesn't have to be forced.

Until it becomes a reality, we will continue to sound off in favor of transparency.