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While the horse racing industry is preparing to pump up to $2 million into the debate over legalizing slot machine gambling in Maryland, a senior adviser for a coalition of slots opponents said his group will continue its "free press strategy" to fight against passage of the Nov. 4 ballot referendum.

"We can't take a much different tack because we don't have $2 million," Scott Arceneaux, a senior advisor with Marylanders United to Stop Slots, said during an interview with Gazette editors and reporters in Gaithersburg.

Last week, Canadian-based MI Developments Inc. authorized its subsidiary Magna Entertainment, which owns Laurel Park in Anne Arundel County and Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, to use $2 million of a bridge loan toward supporting referendum's passage.

Opponents say they are preparing for slots proponents to spend the money on a media blitz, including television spots, in the final weeks before the general election.

Approval of the constitutional amendment would allow 15,000 slots terminals at five locations across the state. Legislative analysts project they could eventually generate nearly $919 million. Of that, a projected $660.4 million would go to an "Education Trust Fund" that would pay for school projects and programs.

Much of the rest will go toward slots operators and the horse racing industry, say opponents, who dispute the revenue projections as inflated and say the long term costs of gambling addiction and other social ills outweigh any additional revenue slots will bring.

Opponents say they hope to be able to raise enough money to purchase radio, and possibly TV air time, though the latter is less likely.

So far, their campaign against the referendum has been limited to news conferences, rallies and editorials in newspapers across the state.

"There's no money in being against slots," Arceneaux said. "There's money in being for slots."

What the opposition group lacks in money it has in support from clergy, including from the African Methodist Episcopal, Southern Baptist and Adventist churches.

"We have as close to 100 percent as you can get with African-American churches in Prince George's County against slots," Arceneaux said.

Last week, Comptroller Peter V.R. Franchot (D) who has broken with Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) and other Democratic leaders to spearhead opposition to the referendum, joined Sen. Janet Greenip (R-Dist. 33) of Crofton and several clergymen from around Maryland at Trinity United Methodist Church in Annapolis.

Franchot called out O'Malley and Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Dist. 27) of Chesapeake Beach for their support of slots, saying that "the reality is that Annapolis is for slots."

A poll released earlier this month by Gonzales Research & Marketing Strategies found that 49 percent of 833 registered likely voters statewide would vote to approve slots "if the election were held today." Forty-three percent said they would vote against it and 8 percent were undecided.

"We're still behind the eight ball," Arceneaux said of the poll.

If there is a surge in turnout on Nov. 4, Arceneaux said he expects that it will favor Sen. Barack Obama (D). That might not necessarily favor the defeat of the slots referendum, Arceneaux said.

"I don't know if they're going to make it all the way down the ballot for us," he said.