...casino death watch...

Local casinos won't cure money woes

Petula Dvorak 4:39 p.m. EDT August 30, 2014

 

 

In wheelchairs and on walkers, Baltimore's big plan for the future shuffled into the Horseshoe casino this week to begin the city's renaissance. Again.

 

"Horseshoe brings the promise of a better Baltimore," declared Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake at the casino's grand opening Tuesday night.

 

Hold your horses, Ms. Mayor. This better Baltimore you envision is a cavern of blinging slot machines and blackjack, craps and poker tables fueled mostly by the pension checks and minimum-wage earnings of the city's struggling folks.

 

 

 

 

The myth that you're keeping glam Vegas money here in the state is a dream. I'm sorry, but Mr. and Mrs. Tuxedo aren't thanking their lucky poker chips that they have Baltimore instead of the Bellagio to blow their fortunes on.

 

The next "Hangover" sequel will never be a hilarious escapade through Baltimore's Fells Point where Bradley Cooper drunkenly elopes with a waitress who called him hon.

 

Destination gambling is one thing. But this new scheme in Baltimore is not competing with Monaco and Macau. This is the kind of gambling that's the equivalent of bottom trawling, preying on the optimism, desperation and sometimes even addiction of vulnerable folks who wouldn't be flying to Las Vegas or even taking the bus to Dover Downs.

 

STORY: Delaware casino competition increases

 

I grew up around casinos in a resort town on Lake Tahoe. My immigrant parents got their start in America working in a casino. Most of my high school jobs were in casinos. My brother and I took pictures with the Caesars Santa, my tap-dancing recitals were on the Sahara stage, my 13th birthday party was dinner at Harrah's.

 

Casinos can provide jobs and become important building blocks in a community. But I also saw families, careers and lives ruined by gambling addiction that devastated locals long after the big-spending tourists went home.

 

So imagine what happens in a city like Baltimore, where a quarter of the 622,000 residents live below the poverty line. One of the first places that tried urban gambling is Detroit. And last I checked, that hadn't worked out so well.

 

As Maryland opened its first urban casino, the state lottery commission also reported a second year of decreased sales. The first drop in 15 years came last year, right after the Maryland Live casino opened near the Arundel Mills Mall.

 

But look at the success of that glittery behemoth on what was shopping mall parking lot! Maryland Live raked in nearly $53 million in July, according to the state gaming commission.

 

First of all, it's pretty stunning to think there's $53 million lying around for folks to throw away in a casino. The bigger question is this: What's going to happen to that stream of money now that gamblers from Baltimore can just take the city bus – the 51 line is changing its route to go through some of the city's poorest neighborhoods on the way to the casino – instead of going to Arundel Mills?

 

And that pool of cash the Arundel Mills folks are swimming in is going to take another hit in two years, once MGM Grand opens the bazillion-dollar gaming emporium at National Harbor in southern Maryland.

 

The downtown Baltimore casino is the fifth to open in Maryland, which legalized slots in 2008 and table games in 2012. Gambling proponents argued successfully Maryland would keep some of the gambling millions going to neighboring Delaware and West Virginia.

 

But now Maryland casinos that were all about keeping cash within state lines are beginning to devour one another's business.

 

Four casinos will be closing in Atlantic City by summer's end. There's a constant death watch in Las Vegas. This summer, I visited my home town in Nevada, where casinos were reporting a 22 percent drop in revenue compared with summertime last year.

 

So it's difficult to believe that the best bet for the future of Baltimore is to build it on the backs of some of the city's most vulnerable residents.

 

Petula Dvorak is a member of the Washington Post Writers Group.

http://www.delawareonline.com/story/opinion/contributors/2014/08/30/local-casinos-cure-money-woes/14825169/



REPEAL THE CASINO DEAL!

 

Impact studies find Baltimore casino could take 23 percent of Maryland Live's revenue

Impact studies find Baltimore casino could take 23 percent of Maryland Live's revenue
By Colin Campbell, The Baltimore Sun

November 21, 2013

The new Horseshoe Baltimore casino, slated to open next year, could begin to swipe more than one-fifth of Maryland Live's revenues as early as the 2016 fiscal year.

The Hollywood Casino Perryville in Cecil County would take the second-largest revenue hit, around 19 percent, from the casino on Russell Street near M&T Bank Stadium, according to two studies commissioned by the Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Agency to gauge the casino's potential impact.

Littleton, Colo.-based Custom Consulting LLC and Arlington, Mass.-based Cummings Associates found that the state's two other casinos in Allegany and Worcester counties would see only a slight impact. Rocky Gap, in Allegany, should expect a 2 percent dip and Ocean Downs in Worcester should see a drop of 0.9 percent, Custom Consulting's report said.

• Related
• Hammerjacks may get third life near M&T stadium
• MGM proposes $925 million casino for P.G. County
• Penn National's track record speaks well for its P.G. casino bid

 

The $400 million, downtown Baltimore casino will be the state's second-largest, after Maryland Live.

Even after a 23 percent drop in revenue, Maryland Live is expected to stay at the top in the state with $542.3 million in fiscal 2016. The Horseshoe is expected to generate an annual $454.4 million in revenue.

Another casino set to open in 2016 in Prince George's county was not factored into the impact studies.



Read more: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-baltimore-casino-20131121,0,7564235.story#ixzz2lQAzvu7k

Chumminess???? Yup!

This sleaziness has already invaded Massachusetts.

Bill Kearney

Massachusetts ‘GAMING’ Future

The Baltimore Sun - May 25, 2013 - Baltimore mayor officiates at lobbyist wedding in Vegas

Guests included heavy hitters in Maryland politics
...
One thing that happened in Vegas last week certainly won't stay in Vegas: The lobbyists Lisa Harris Jones and Sean Malone were married there before about 100 well-wishers, who included some of Maryland's top government officials — including the wedding officiant, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.

Malone, a one-time top aide to Gov. Martin O'Malley, and Jones, perennially among the state's highest-earning lobbyists, joined professional forces five years ago and on Tuesday were married in Las Vegas by Rawlings-Blake. The mayor was attending an annual retail convention there.

Read more: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-jones-malone-wedding-20130524,0,2135186.story#ixzz2Uavqy5owSee More

 

 

 

"When we got engaged, we said, 'Let's do it in Vegas.' A lot of our friends were going to be out there anyway," Jones said Friday of scheduling her wedding to coincide with an annual convention attended by public officials and the retailers they would like to lure to their locales.

Indeed, among the officials who attended both the Jones-Malone nuptials and the Global Retail Real Estate Convention sponsored by the International Council of Shopping Centers were Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown, multiple state legislators and a host of State House and City Hall staff members.

While the public officials were in Las Vegas on the taxpayers' dime, several said they considered the time they spent at the wedding, held at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, part of the off-hours that occur during any business trip.

"When anyone travels on business, and that is the main purpose of the trip, there's no belief that at some point during the trip that you don't have free time," Rawlings-Blake said. "Every convention that I've been on, there's been conference time, as well as down time. I think this down time was a little higher-profile than others, but you know, people can use their down time without it being a misappropriation of taxpayer funds."

The newlyweds' firm, Harris Jones & Malone, is among the busiest lobbying groups in Baltimore and Annapolis, with clients that include unions, gambling companies, contractors, Baltimore Gas & Electric, marriage equality groups, Wal-Mart and other companies.

Malone said Gov. Martin O'Malley and his wife District Court Judge Katie Curran O'Malley "of course" were invited but declined due to, respectively, a Democratic Governors Association event and a full docket.

That the guest list for lobbyists' wedding would include many of the public officials that they regularly seek to influence is an outgrowth of the "chumminess" that develops in government hallways, political observers said.

"It's a kind of clan," said Matthew Crenson, a Johns Hopkins University political scientist professor emeritus. "They get together and talk shop and trade rumors."

"Lobbyists, when the legislature is in session, take them out to dinner and lunch all the time," he added.

Among those attending the wedding, according to the Afro newspaper, which first reported on the nuptials on Wednesday, were Maryland Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr., Sens. Catherine Pugh and Joan Carter Conway, Del. Dereck Davis and the acting deputy secretary of transportation, Leif Dormsjo.

"This just shows how close the relationship is between lobbyists and government officials," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of the watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Sloan said that can pose a problem if lobbyists ultimately have an undue influence on how, for example, legislation is crafted. But, she added, "it doesn't seem like anyone was wasting taxpayer dollars" if the officials were already in Las Vegas for the convention.

Brown said he attended the wedding after a couple of days of meetings and before heading to the airport Tuesday evening to return to Maryland. Brown said he has known both Jones and Malone, an aide to O'Malley since his days as a councilman then mayor, for years.

"I think that friendships are not mutually exclusive from your professional pursuits," said Brown, who recently announced his campaign to succeed the term-limited O'Malley. "You see that in so many different professions."

Brown said he didn't see a problem with mixing a little bit of pleasure with the business he was conducting in Las Vegas.

"It's no different than when county officials go to Ocean City for [the Maryland Association of Counties conference], and go to the beach in the afternoon between the conference meetings and seminars."

It is a second marriage for both Malone and Jones, who live in Ruxton, and they have three sons between them. Jones was formerly married to Pless Jones of P&J Contracting, which does much demolition work for the city.

Their lobby firm has close ties to city and state officials. Associate Caitlin McDonough, for example, is Senate President Miller's former legislative director.
Malone and Jones said that despite their marriage, Jones, as the founder of the lobbying firm, would remain the majority partner.

"I tried to negotiate" a bigger share, Malone, 46, said with a laugh.

No can do, Jones, 45, said. "It's just a separation of church and state."

Sun reporter Justin Fenton contributed to this article.

 

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-jones-malone-wedding-20130524,0,2135186.story#ixzz2Uavqy5ow

 

 

Gambling was the death of Detroit: Will Baltimore be next?

From Bill Kearney [from facebook] --

Massachusetts ‘GAMING’ Future

The Baltimore Sun - August 24, 2012 - Gambling was the death of Detroit: Will Baltimore be next?

In his recent commentary, Paul Davies laid out the ludicrousness of Maryland politicians' accelerated push to expand gambling in the state ("Gambling: still morally bankrupt," Aug. 23). They don't even have revenue coming in from all the currently authorized casino venues, yet they can't seem to legalize more sites fast enough.

Next will be Internet gambling, so that people can have a couple of drinks at home and then make stupid decisions with a couple of clicks that impair them financially for years. The gaming industry preys upon the vulnerable and it is an incredible mechanism for diverting wealth from those who can least afford it to the 1 percent.

I'm from Detroit, and about 10 years ago the gambling industry saw fertile ground in that city. The economy was in the tank, having been in the process of collapse for decades along with the auto industry. Detroit's political leaders were desperate for income, and the city had a huge poverty problem.

Read more: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/readersrespond/bs-ed-gambling-20120823,0,2711260.story#tugs_story_displaySee More