PROVIDENCE — Moments after winning the chairmanship of the General Assembly’s Lottery oversight commission, Rep. William San Bento joined his predecessor, Sen. Maryellen Goodwin, yesterday in suggesting a public referendum next year on turning Twin River and Newport Grand into full-fledged casinos.

Today, the two gambling venues are home to more than 6,200 Lottery-provided video-slot machines and simulcast races from out of state. Twin River also has greyhound dog races several days a week.

“I would have done it yesterday, if it was my call,” said San Bento, D-Pawtucket, after the meeting in which he took the reins from Goodwin in what has become an annual House-Senate tradeoff. The former chairwoman, asked if she expected the outcome would be different this time around, said: “I do.”

Voters in 2006 rejected a proposed Harrah’s-financed Narragansett Indian casino in West Warwick.

A third member of the Lottery oversight commission, Rep. John J. McCauley Jr., D-Providence, disputed the governor’s argument that “the people have [already] spoken.”

He said the failed casino proposal in 2006 was deeply flawed in many ways, but principally because it contained a “slippage clause” that would have required the state to compensate the two pre-existing slot parlors for any losses attributable to competition from a newly opened Rhode Island casino. McCauley said even he voted against it, but “right now, walking in with everyone’s eyes open ... [and] the state gets to keep 62 cents of every dollar, I think people would vote for it in a heartbeat.” He also predicted resistant community leaders in Newport and Lincoln could be persuaded to see the “overall picture” if “you tell them you are going to shut off state aid.”

“What would change by making it a casino?” he asked. “What’s different from what’s going on there now?”

Sen. John J. Tassoni Jr. has already proposed an amendment to the state Constitution to allow full-scale casino gambling at both Twin River and Newport Grand. He cites the ever-present threat that Massachusetts will approve casino gambling — or slots at its own tracks — exacerbating Rhode Island’s budget crisis by snatching away the Bay State gambling dollars currently being spent here.

Tasso, a business agent for Council 94, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Tassoni said he introduced the bill because: “I think it is time. We don’t have enough revenue for the budget. I believe this would help ... [and] it is like what the governor said. Status quo can no longer be accepted. We need to make sure we are on the head of the train, not the caboose.”

A similar bill was introduced in the House last year by San Bento, but it never made it out of the House Finance Committee. There are currently 4,751 slots at Twin River and 1,527 at Newport Grand.

With a crucial deadline looming for Twin River to pull itself back from the brink of bankruptcy, House Speaker William. J. Murphy has not taken a position on the referendum proposal but has said state leaders are at a point where they need to consider all options, including a state buyout of the Lincoln dog track-and-slot parlor, to “protect” the state’s anticipated $246.8-million annual share of the slot revenue. But none of the Lottery panel members interviewed yesterday voiced any enthusiasm for a state takeover as anything but a short-term, emergency measure under what they described as the unlikely event that Twin River’s owners, already in default on the repayment of $565 million in loans, are dragged into involuntary bankruptcy by their lenders.

In fact, they described the financial update that Lottery director Gerald Aubin gave as relatively good news. In comparison with the same July 1 through Feb. 21 stretch a year ago, he said, both traditional Lottery ticket sales and video slot activity are down, but only by 1.47 percent, with Powerball down but likely to pick up if the latest jackpot goes unclaimed Wednesday night, and Instant Tickets beating last year’s $11.5 million in sales by 2.4 percent.

On the video-Lottery front, which includes virtual blackjack, and other electronic versions of traditional casino-like games, he said, Twin River seems to be rebounding after weeks of double-digit losses. Revenues are still lagging behind last year’s collections at the same time, but in the week that ended Feb. 14, they were only down by 4 percent at Twin River and 7 percent at Newport Grand.

kgregg@projo.com