Delaware proposes $10M taxpayer-funded bailout to save casino jobs

(Photo: GARY EMEIGH/THE NEWS JOURNAL)

Casino owners have warned of layoffs and a dip

in revenue to the state should the measures fail

Casino bill, amendment head to House floor

Jon Offredo, The News Journal6:02 p.m. EDT June 30, 2014

A bill giving financial relief for Delaware's casinos is heading to the House floor for a full vote on the last day of the General Assembly, but there's a catch.

General Assembly: Casino bill

A proposed amendment to a $9.9 million casino relief package filed Monday afternoon requires the state's three casinos to give back any state money they receive if they lay off more than 3 percent of their workforce.

The amendment, supported by House Democratic leadership, is a last-minute addition to the mix and could complicate matters if the House approves it because it would require another Senate vote. The bailout package is one of the last big-ticket items left in this year's legislative session and is expected to be heard at some point during Monday night's marathon session.

The amendment was not filed to kill the bill, but to allay fears that the casinos would lay off people even if they got the money, said Rep. Dennis E. Williams, a Talleyville Democrat, and sponsor of the amendment. Casino owners have said that no money would result in layoffs and a loss in service and revenue to the state. But it's not certain that job loss would be prevented if they received a bailout.

"I'm still not in favor of the bailout, but I think it's important that if it does pass that there are guarantees that those jobs will be saved," Williams said. "If that's why they are saying they need the money, then let's make sure they retain those jobs."

The package, whittled down from an original proposition of $9.9 million in the first year and $20.1 million in each subsequent year, was released from the House Gaming and Parimutuel Committee with a 6-4 vote on Monday.

Bill Rickman, Delaware Park owner, said the casino wouldn't lay anyone off. Delaware Park employs just over 1,000 people.

"If we had problems, we gave people incentives to retire earlier," he said. "We don't lay people off."

Lawmakers have debated the legislation, with some arguing that the state money could be used for other needs, and others saying it is a stabilizing measure meant to keep the state's partners in the casino industry afloat.​

Contact Jon Offredo at (302) 678-4271 or at joffredo@delawareonline.com or on Twitter @jonoffredo.

http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/politics/2014/06/29/casino-aid-debate-reaches-final-day/11730345/

“Gambling is just never going to recover,”................

“Gambling is just never going to recover,”.................

Lawmakers and voters delude themselves into believing somehow, the $$$$ will fall from the heavens like manna even though the GAMBLING MARKET IS SATURATED.

In the case of Massac...husetts, Rhode Island bailed out their 'casinos' and Rhode Island is not doing as well economically as Massachusetts.

Connecticut is a financial basket case that couldn't even afford to fully fund the Spectrum Report. They're bailing out the Tribal Casinos, taking a hit because of declining revenues, excessive debt and GAMBLING MARKET SATURATION.

Will folks wake up?

University of Delaware professor says Delaware casinos won't recover

James Butkiewicz says lawmakers wishing on a star if they think so

Oct. 12, 2013
Written by Jonathan Starkey
The News Journal

The head of the University of Delaware’s Department of Economics says state officials should find ways to reduce Delaware’s reliance on casino revenues, with regional competition squeezing Delaware’s three casinos and the state budget.

“Gambling is just never going to recover,” said James Butkiewicz, department chair.

“They’re kidding themselves if they think it is. You don’t go from a monopoly to competition and make the same rate of return.”

Butkiewicz’s comments come as a public task force continues to meet to review Delaware’s casino industry, and possibly recommend changes to gambling taxes.

Finance Secretary Tom Cook chairs the Lottery and Gaming Study Commission, and several state lawmakers are members.

In public presentations before the task force on Tuesday, all three of Delaware’s casinos said they are experiencing drops in revenues due to regional competition.

Delaware Park is forecasting a 17-percent drop in revenues in 2013. Harrington expects to lose about 4 percent. Dover Downs’ revenue from slot machines has fallen more than 20 percent since 2007, executives said.

Taxes on slot machines represent, by far, the largest portion of Delaware’s lottery revenues, which also include money from table games, a sports lottery and traditional lottery tickets.

State tax collections on gambling are predicted to fall to $227 million in the current year, which would be the lowest total since 2004. The revenue funded more than 6 percent of the state’s operating budget last year.

Butkiewicz said state officials are “whistling in the dark” if they expect to reverse the trend.

Cook defended the state’s policy on gambling, saying lawmakers and members of the Markell administration have diversified by adding table games and Internet gambling.

“I don’t think you can be in this game and just throw up your hands and just give up,” Cook said.


http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20131013/NEWS02/310130041/UD-professor-Casinos-won-t-recover

Defining Insanity!

The Gambling Industry saturates the market, sucks discretionary income from local communities, then whines for tax cuts, never delivering the overstated promises.

Gone is the pretense of 'job creation' and phony revenue claims.

Lawmakers obsess about the monthly revenue claims, ignoring sensible fiscal policy or the damage wrought.  

REGION: Maryland chips away at Delaware's gambling revenue

Mar 6, 2013

Newly installed table games at the Hollywood Casino in Perryville, Md., will open for play Thursday. / ROBERT CRAIG/THE NEWS JOURNAL

WILMINGTON — Bright and early Thursday morning, gamblers at Hollywood Casino in Perryville, Md., will start cashing chips, tossing dice and playing cards in the venue’s new table game section, the first to open in the state since a November referendum legalizing the games.

Many of those players will be from Delaware, or they’ll be customers who might otherwise have taken their business to a casino in the First State – at least that’s what Hollywood’s owners hope.

For Delaware’s three racetrack-casinos, the launch of table games in Maryland is expected to be the latest in a series of gambling expansions in the region that have taken a slice out of their profits – and the state’s revenues.

Delaware’s tax receipts from gambling fell 6 percent in fiscal year 2012, and are down 6 percent to date in fiscal 2013. Last year the state reaped $269 million in lottery proceeds, $18 million less than the year before.

State gambling revenues are projected to fall a total of 12 percent this year before leveling off in 2014, according to the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council. The dismal DEFAC estimates are based almost entirely on growing regional competition.

Hollywood Casino, located in Cecil County, will open about 20 table game stations on its floor at 8 a.m. Thursday. Delaware Park, just 30 miles north of Hollywood on I-95, is expected to see losses sooner than other casinos in the state.

“When Perryville opened their slot parlor, the first one to feel the biggest hit was Delaware Park,” said Ed Sutor, CEO of Dover Downs Hotel and Casino.

Executives from Delaware Park did not respond to calls seeking comment.

Pennsylvania is experiencing similiar [sic] declines. Gross revenue from slot machine play at the state’s 11 casinos was down 9.2 percent last month. The casinos generated $195.9 million in gross revenue from slots in February, down from $215.7 million during the same period the year before, according to Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board figures released this week.

The four casinos in the crowded Philadelphia market were down significantly as well. Parx Casino in Bensalem, Pa., and Harrah’s Philadelphia in Chester were down 11.5 percent and 12 percent, respectively, over the same period the year before. Sugarhouse Casino in Philadelphia was down 9.7 percent.

Since its first casino opened, Pennsylvania has seen rapid growth in its casino industry and it’s now the nation’s second-largest gambling market, behind Las Vegas. But the state is now facing increased competition from new or added gambling in Maryland, New York, Ohio and Delaware.

Hollywood Casino spokeswoman Jennifer Miglionico knows the regional gambling competition is fierce, which is why her company worked to get table games up and running quickly.

“Our focus is pulling any players that are currently leaving the state to play table games, going to Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey,” she said. “That’s the intent, to bring new business.”

But Sutor said Perryville’s relatively small facility poses much less of a threat to Delaware venues than the launch of table games at the massive Maryland Live! casino south of Baltimore, scheduled for April 11.

“Our real concern is Maryland Live! They’ll have ten times as many tables [as Hollywood] in a market we heavily rely on for customers,” he said.

Hollywood has yet to recover from the hit it took when Maryland Live! opened in June of last year.

“When we opened, we were the first in the state,” Miglionico said. “The numbers we’re reporting show year-over-year we’ve seen a loss. That’s because Maryland Live! opened up.”

Even though table games will be the new draw, slots are casinos’ biggest moneymakers and are expected to see gains from the increased foot traffic brought by table games.

“Slots is still over 85 percent of the total revenues,” Sutor said. “It’s going to further dilute the pool of customers.”

Delaware casinos already are seeing their table-game dealers and supervisors hired away by Maryland casinos, Sutor added.

“They’ve been advertising locally. Who do you think they’re coming after, advertising in the local papers?” he said.

Casino operators can only guess at the impact of a new Harrah’s casino set to open in downtown Baltimore next year, or a new Maryland venue just outside Washington, D.C., approved by voters in the table games referendum and scheduled for completion in 2016.

However, the other casino on Delaware’s doorstep, Ocean Downs in Berlin, Md., does not have plans to add table games to its slots parlor – at least not yet. Ocean Downs and Delaware Park are both owned by William M. Rickman Jr.

Sutor said Delaware’s casinos have a chance to make up competitive ground with the launch of Internet gambling in the state later this year, but he doesn’t expect a huge windfall from the high-overhead venture.

The real strategy is to continue lobbying lawmakers for lower gambling tax rates, as the industry has done consistently in recent years, to limited effect.

“We’re hoping the Legislature and the administration will give us an opportunity as an industry to revisit the revenue sharing, because right now it’s not working,” Sutor said.

http://www.delmarvanow.com/article/20130306/NEWS01/130306004/REGION-Maryland-chips-away-Delaware-s-gambling-revenues

Two men jailed for crimes at casinos

Two men jailed for crimes at casinos
Charges include carjacking, robbery
Written by SEAN O'SULLIVAN The News Journal

WILMINGTON -- A pair of Wilmington men who preyed on senior citizens -- carjacking one they met at a casino, then using the stolen vehicle to drive to a second casino, where they stalked and robbed a couple -- were each sentenced to more than a decade in prison on Friday.

Eric Hill, 27 was sent to prison for 18 years and six months, and co-defendant Jerome Watkins, 26, received a sentence of 10 years and six months from Superior Court Judge John A. Parkins for their roles in a crime that got them about $32 cash.

According to attorneys, Hill and Watkins were gambling at Delaware Park on the afternoon of Sept. 16, 2010, trying to win enough money to bail a cousin out of prison. When the pair came up empty-handed, they instead set their sights on a 74-year-old man at the casino.

Hill and Watkins at first appeared to befriend the man, helping him walk to his vehicle and getting a ride from him, according to attorneys, only to later turn on him once they got to the man's Newark home, just after 3 p.m., taking his gold- colored minivan.

The pair then drove to Harrah's Casino in Chester, Pa., where they began to stalk an 84-year-old man, who was using a walker, and his 64-year-old wife.

Hill and Watkins apparently thought the couple had won money and followed them from the casino back to their Brandywine Hundred home in the stolen minivan. Once at the home, around 7 p.m., Watkins tackled the 64-year-old woman outside her front door while Hill threatened the 84-year-old man and rifled through his pockets as he helplessly watched his wife get assaulted, according to attorneys.

The two were caught when they returned to Harrah's and authorities recognized the stolen minivan. Watkins and Hill both later admitted to robbery, conspiracy and carjacking charges in plea deals.

In court, both men apologized for their actions. Hill claimed he was now "a new man, a man of God" who plans to do right when he returns to society.

Deputy Attorney General Abigail Layton did not ask for a specific sentence for Watkins but asked Parkins to incarcerate Hill for 40 years because of his lengthy criminal history that included previous crimes of violence against senior citizens.

She told Parkins the victimized couple was traumatized by the incident and have not been able to return to the casino since, depriving them of what they said was one of their few pleasures in retirement.

Layton concluded that a 40-year sentence would ensure that Hill was himself a senior citizen when he got out of prison.

Hill's attorney, Brian J. Chapman, argued his client had "good pieces," who despite his lengthy record had never served more than a year or two in prison prior to this incident.

Parkins told Watkins his crimes deserved no leniency, but later told Hill -- who was facing a minimum mandatory sentence of 13 years -- that he did not think a sentence of 40 years was appropriate, either.

Outside court, Chapman said he was disappointed by the disparity between the sentences given to Hill and Watkins.

Watkins' attorney, Ralph D. Wilkinson IV, declined comment outside court.
Layton said the state respected the court's rulings in the matter.

Woman sells baby at Delaware Park Racetrack & Casino

Delaware woman charged with selling her baby to a Philly man
By Robert Moran, Inquirer Staff Writer

A Delaware woman has been charged with selling her month-old son to a Philadelphia man, possibly for $15,000, authorities said Tuesday.

Bridget Wismer, 33, was arrested Friday and charged with dealing in children and conspiracy, both felonies, said New Castle County Police Cpl. John Weglarz Sr. Wismer lives in Brookside Park, Del.

New Castle detectives executed a search warrant that same day at the home of John Gavaghan, 54, in Northeast Philadelphia. There they found the baby and 10 "agreement" documents related to the transfer of the boy, Weglarz said. It was not immediately clear how much money changed hands.

The child, who was in good condition, was placed in the custody of social-service agencies in Philadelphia and Delaware before being placed in a foster home.

Gavaghan faces the same charges as Wismer. Both have been released on bail.

On Sept. 4, police received a tip from a family member that "Bridget is attempting to sell her child for $15,000 to a Philadelphia man," Weglarz said.

The police investigation discovered surveillance video of Gavaghan signing some of the agreement documents at Delaware Park Racetrack & Casino, Weglarz said.


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