New Jersey: Desperate!

Following the yellow brick road to casino oblivion, New Jersey proposes to subsidize their racing industry with savings by reducing casino regulations.

Careful Governor! We know who's behind the curtain! And we know who your traveling companions are!

Fiscal mismanagement and poor public policy can't be concealed by New Jersey's Addiction to Gambling Revenues.

This says a great deal about New Jersey's problems that got them where they are failing to consider the costs and impacts of Casino Gambling ---

The 10 Worst States for Retirees

New Jersey, according to Brady's analysis, has the highest property taxes in the U.S., as well as the highest total tax burden of any state, as reported in a 2008 Tax Foundation report. Plus, New Jersey has serious pension-funding issues, Brady noted.

Casino deregulation / Don't belittle concerns

Several current and former lawmakers and regulators are warning about the pace and potential effects of a bill that radically changes New Jersey's casino regulatory structure.

Are they right? We don't know. But their calls for caution should be taken seriously - not airily dismissed as self-serving, as Gov. Chris Christie did recently.

At a Senate committee hearing this month, Casino Control Commission Chair Linda Kassekert - as well as former lawmakers and Casino Control Commission chairmen Steven Perskie and James Hurley - warned that the bill rolling back regulation was being rushed through the Legislature, with little understanding of the ramifications. Kassekert in particular warned that the new structure could jeopardize the integrity of the games, as well as the state's ability to ensure it gets its proper share of gaming revenue.

Christie dismissed Kassekert as just "trying to protect her own turf." The bill would strip the CCC of most of its responsibilities and transfer those duties to the state Division of Gaming Enforcement.

Questioning Kassekert's motives is not only unfair, but it conveniently sidesteps the substantive issues she and others have raised.

New Jersey's casino regulations could very well use updating. But critics raise a good point when they say that the process on this deregulation bill has seemed flawed - that instead of careful deliberation about the potential effects of the regulatory reform, the process has seemed driven by a desire to find monetary savings both to help the city's struggling casinos and to fund an Atlantic City tourism district and marketing effort.

Yet because of concessions to racetrack interests, that money saved from deregulation - which has been estimated at $15 million to $25 million - is largely going to the horse-racing industry, not Atlantic City, for three years. That was an outrageous concession made to horse-racing interests in the tourism-district bill that passed the Senate last Monday.

Once regulations are loosened, they are difficult or impossible to tighten again. Ideally, the Legislature would pass the tourism-district bill quickly and hold the deregulation bill for a short time, allowing further study and a more careful and complete analysis of potential ramifications: the cost savings, the number of jobs lost, any problems encountered in other states with looser gambling regulations, for example.

But the climate in Trenton is far from ideal.

Christie says he wants Atlantic City reform passed as a package. In fact, he is even refusing to sign a bill that will allow boutique casinos in Atlantic City until the Legislature passes the deregulation and tourism-district bills - even though the boutique-casino bill was never a part of Christie's package of regulatory reform.

Holding that bill hostage may be good hardball politics, but it's bad policy for Atlantic City. The Hard Rock hotel chain says it's ready to start on a boutique hotel in the resort as soon as the bill is law. If the governor truly wants to help Atlantic City, he should sign the boutique-hotel bill now - and get a little momentum going in the resort as soon as possible.


Bill doesn't 'reform' casino regulations -- it destroys them

The enactment of the Casino Control Act, following the November 1976 passage of the constitutional amendment that legalized casinos, was the result of a thorough, 18-month public review. Now, without warning, it is doomsday for casino regulation in New Jersey.

In the package of major pending legislation to reinvigorate New Jersey's principal private gambling industries, horse racing and casinos, one bill stands out for its incoherent surrender of the New Jersey casino regulatory system.