Business leaders seeking to bring casino gambling to Kentucky should pursue a Constitutional amendment to reach their goal, state Attorney General Ben Chandler told about 50 local business leaders at a luncheon Friday in Covington.

"That's been a big point of contention - whether it can be done with or without a Constitutional amendment," said Chandler, who is running for governor in 2004.

"Gambling is illegal in Kentucky unless you carve out an exception. The lottery was an exception that was carved out by the public. It's our opinion that when the public voted on the lottery, they did not vote to approve casino gambling.

"I believe that if they -- in my judgment the law supports this - do end up going in that direction it's a much better practice to have the public vote on it."

Casino gambling has been proposed as a way to help a struggling state budget -- casino boats across the Ohio River in Indiana are siphoning away millions of dollars that could be taxed here in Kentucky, proponents say. Kentucky horse tracks also want gambling, saying the casinos are drawing away too much of the gambling dollar.

Chandler didn't say whether he supported casino gambling. But he predicted that any attempt to bring it to Kentucky -- no matter what procedure is used -- would bring a flurry of lawsuits.

"This (casino gambling) will be litigated and it will be litigated very vigorously," he said. "I just think that is (a constitutional amendment) the better approach."

Gambling was just one of the topics Chandler addressed during the luncheon, held at the Metropolitan Club as part of the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce Government Forum.

He told business leaders that he is not interested in raising taxes in Kentucky at all if elected governor even though the state is battling a budget deficit.

"We're just going to have to find in my judgment creative ways to make the government work properly," Chandler said.

He said Kentucky has two particular problems as it relates to taxes.

"That is we overtax our businesses, therefore causing them to not want to locate in the state or want to leave the state, which is obviously is not good for the business environment," Chandler said. "At the same time we're also overtaxing our poor people in the state. So we're getting hit on both ends of it.

"The biggest problem that we've got and the thing that we need to do is to figure how to grow wealth in this Commonwealth."

He said the preparation for his gubernatorial campaign is going well, and he looks forward to active campaigning. He also said:

• He opposes commuting the sentencing of felons in county jails as a way to alleviate budget woes.

• His office has received various complaints on voter fraud, especially in the eastern part of the state, that center on the practice of buying votes. But most voter fraud these days involves absentee ballots, he said.