Muscatine County couldn't have sent a clearer message about gambling.

While Iowans were trampling one another trying to land gambling casinos, the residents of this Mississippi River county said no 10 years ago. The vote was 9,656 against bringing slot machines, blackjack and craps tables to the county.

Only 4,764 said yes to a promise that 600,000 gamblers a year would come to Muscatine's riverfront. They didn't care that it meant losing maybe $1 million a year that would have helped pay for community projects.

Casino-style gambling would not come to the city of nearly 23,000 people. They'd seen it briefly in 1991 and didn't like it. So in 1996, they followed the law and voted to keep a new casino with its slots and tables far away.

Turns out it didn't matter all that much. The state of Iowa — specifically the Iowa Lottery — has installed dozens of slot machines in the county. And more are on the way. Lottery officials deny they're slot machines, you know. They say they merely are an electronic way to distribute lottery chances.

I don't know anybody who believes that. Especially in Muscatine County.

In the city of Muscatine, 23 convenience stores, bars and supermarkets have the TouchPlay machines. Seven more locations, including a laundry and a pool hall, have them on order.

They're in seven businesses up the road in West Liberty, including the country club. Two other places have ordered them.

There are three in Wilton, and two more to come. Atalissa, population 283, has two. Nichols, population 372, has one in a tavern and another on the way to a convenience store. Even tiny Moscow — no official population listed because it is unincorporated — has one.

That's 49 locations in a largely rural county that said no to slot machines.

"The lottery people say they're not slot machines," said Robert Miller of Muscatine, head of the Truth About Gambling Foundation. "That's ridiculous. But there's an argument over it. Fine. I think it's time the citizens of Muscatine County sued the state of Iowa. Let's have the court decide. We voted it down in Muscatine County. The state brought the machines here. I think that's worthy of a court determination."

Allen Kiddoo, owner of a Muscatine printing business the last 25 years, thinks a lawsuit is a fine idea. He was convinced something needed to be done when he walked into a drugstore last week and saw something he says made him sick.

"Here was this woman standing next to one of the machines," Kiddoo said. "She's got this small child with her, I'd guess 4 or 5 years old. The child was putting dollar bills into the machine and she was punching the buttons. This is worse than what we thought we were voting out. Video slot machines are all over the county."

Politicians are finding lots of ways to rationalize what's happening. Most talk about how much the machines mean to local business owners, who say they simply couldn't survive if the state stopped the gambling. Doesn't matter that most of them operated without it before the machines showed up. Now, it's vital to their survival.

My favorite comes from Republican State Rep. Clarence Hoffman, who explained his support for the gambling activity at a gathering in Denison. This is from the Denison Bulletin/Review newspaper:

"Hoffman said while he hates gambling, the TouchPlay lottery machines have helped small businesses. He said some small business owners have told him they would have closed without them, and added in some cases, these small businesses are the only ones in town that sell milk."

Interesting argument. Pull the machines, and kids won't have milk.

The governor has ordered a moratorium on further orders of the machines - 5,000 are already out there. But the moratorium doesn't cover the 5,500 more in the process of being delivered. So there soon will be 10,500 machines in 3,500 businesses in every county.

And there they'll stay unless the people of Iowa convince the politicians they've had enough.