A Good Way to Wreck a Local Economy: Build Casinos

No one should look to the gambling industry to revive cities, “because that’s not what casinos do.”

David FrumAug 7 2014

 

 

Steve Marcus/Reuters

Baltimore is a troubled city, as you know from The Wire. Like many troubled cities, Baltimore has turned to casino gambling as its solution. On August 26, a new Caesar’s casino will open on the site of an old chemical factory, a little more than 2 miles from the famous Inner Harbor and Camden Yards baseball stadium. Yet there’s already reason to expect the casino to disappoint everyone involved: the city looking for tax revenues, the workers hoping for jobs, the investors expecting hefty returns.

Outside of Las Vegas—now home to only 20 percent of the nation’s casino industry—casino gambling has evolved into a downscale business. Affluent and educated people visit casinos less often than poorer people do for the same reasons that they smoke less and drink less and weigh less.

Unfortunately for the casino industry’s growth hopes, downscale America has less money to spend today than it did before 2007. Nor is downscale America sharing much in the post-2009 recovery.

From a news report on the troubles of a recently opened Ohio casino:

Ameet Patel, general manager of the property, says the softness in casino revenue that he and other operators have seen has been driven by a key demographic: women older than 50 who used to bet $50 to $75 per visit. The weak recovery has squeezed their gambling budgets, and their trips to casinos are fewer, he says.

What’s true in Ohio applies nationwide. Casino revenues had still not recovered their 2007 peaks as of the spring of 2014, when again they went into reverse in most jurisdictions. Moody’s now projects that casino revenues will drop through the rest of 2014 and all of 2015, slicing industry earnings by as much as 7.5 percent.

Weaker earnings are being divided among ever multiplying numbers of casinos. Baltimore’s casino will be the fourth to open in Maryland, with a fifth soon to rise down the Potomac from Washington, DC. Maryland’s casinos compete with a clutch of new casinos in Philadelphia and Delaware.

Why so much building? Cities are authorizing more casinos for exactly the same reason that the existing casinos are losing business: the weak national economy. Casinos promise a new and easy flow of revenues to hard pressed local governments.

The promise however comes increasingly hedged with fine print.

The casino market is nearing saturation, if it is not already saturated. Two casinos have closed in Mississippi this year. Four have closed or will soon close in Atlantic City, including the glitziest hotel on the boardwalk, Revel.

Despite its gambling industry, Atlantic City still has trouble sustaining even a single grocery store.

Casinos that do stay in business yield less to their towns and states. Revenues from Maryland’s first casino, in Perryville, at the northern tip of Chesapeake Bay, have already dropped 30 percent from their peak in 2008, and are expected to decline even more rapidly in future as competitors proliferate.

Yet the truly bad news about casinos is not found in the tax receipts. It’s found in the casinos' economic and social impact on the towns that welcome them.

Until the late 1970s, no state except Nevada permitted casino gambling. Then Atlantic City persuaded its state legislature to allow casinos, in hope of reviving the prosperity of the battered resort town. Hotels sprung up along the seafront. Thousands of people were hired. And the rest of Atlantic City … saw no benefits at all. All these years later, it still has desperate trouble sustaining even a single grocery store.

No one should look to casinos to revive cities, “because that’s not what casinos do.” So explained the project manager for a new Wynn casino rising near Philadelphia. He’s right, but it has taken a surprisingly long time for city governments to acknowledge a fact that was well understood by the 19th-century Americans who suppressed gambling in the decades after the Civil War.

The impact of casinos on neighboring property values is “unambiguously negative,” according to the economists at the National Association of Realtors. Casinos don’t encourage non-gaming businesses to open nearby, because the people who most often visit casinos do not wander out to visit other shops and businesses. A casino is not like a movie theater or a sports stadium, offering a time-limited amusement. It is designed to be an all-absorbing environment that does not release its customers until they have exhausted their money.

The Institute for American Values has gathered the best evidence on the social consequences of casinos. That evidence should worry any responsible city government.

People who live close to a casino are twice as likely to become problem gamblers as people who live more than 10 miles away. As casinos have become more prevalent, so has problem gambling: in some states, the evidence suggests a tripling or even quadrupling of the number of problem gamblers.

While the gaming industry argues that the total number of problem gamblers remains small, that small minority is crucial to the industry’s profits: One Canadian study found that the 75 percent of casino customers who gamble most casually provide only 4 percent of casino revenues. A range of studies reviewed by IAV estimated that between 40 to 60 percent of casino revenues are earned from problem gamblers. And as Amy Zietlow observed in an important study commissioned by IAV, those problem gamblers increasingly are drawn from the ranks of the vulnerable elderly. Half of casino visitors are over age 50, but casinos market themselves to the over 70 and even over 80 market, to whom gambling offers an escape from boredom and loneliness into a hypnotic zone of rapid-fire electronic stimuli.

As casino expansion reaches its limits, the towns and cities that turned to gambling to escape their problems may discover that they have accepted a sucker’s bet: local economies that look worse than ever, local residents tempted into new forms of self-destructive behavior, and a dwindling flow of cash to show for it all.




http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/08/a-good-way-to-wreck-a-local-economy-build-casinos/375691/

You made today's Sunday New York Times

The New York Times has been publishing a high-profile series on inequality in America they've titled "The Great Divide" moderated by Nobel laureate in economics, Joseph Stiglitz.

As part of its series, today's Sunday New York Times published a very important op-ed about about how government-sponsored casinos and lotteries contribute to inequality. This piece gives a voice to tens of millions of Americans whose lives have been profoundly impacted by this public policy. It also elevates the voices of all of you who have sacrificed for this just cause, and who continue to participate, regardless whether you've been a part of it for twenty years or twenty days.

I urge you as strongly as I can to read The Times op-ed and then share it as widely as possible to your network of family, friends and co-workers. Here is the link to the op-ed on The NY Times website and the tools to share it are on the left side of the article. Please act to share it as soon as you're done reading because this is the message we have been working so hard to advance and now that it is producing successful results, we must seize the opportunity by working even harder to share it.

The piece is written by Barbara Whitehead, one of the nation's leading public scholars on government-sponsored gambling and director of civil society initiatives at the Institute for American Values. Barbara was also the principal investigator of the 2013 national report, Why Casinos Matter: Thirty-One Evidence-Based Propositions from the Health and Social Sciences, which presented the mounting independent evidence that government’s public policy of promoting casinos is contributing to the unfairness and inequality in our nation.

Barbara's latest and maybe most important report The Incredible Shrinking Problem: Gambling and the Politics of Expert Knowledge will be publicly released at an upcoming national conference on government-sponsored gambling being held on July 24-25. The full details of the conference can be found at this link. Here are some suggestions for travel logistics. I'll be there and I encourage you to get down there if it is all possible.

I commonly tell journalists that it is not a question of if government will phase out its policy of sponsoring casinos and predatory forms of lotteries, but when. It's inevitable. Today, with this NY Times oped, the inevitable just came a little closer. The more you keep pushing, the faster it is going to happen.

If you support our mission and work, please participate by contributing $10 or more today to help sustain it.

With gratitude,

Les

____________

Les Bernal

National Director

Stop Predatory Gambling

"End the unfairness and inequality created by government-sponsorship of casinos and lotteries."

Quick Links An American Declaration on Government and Gambling Online Store SPG in the Media Take Action A Failed Government Policy Lies vs. Facts Background Reading Share Your Story Donate To The Mission

The Great Divide

Gaming the Poor

By BARBARA DAFOE WHITEHEAD

June 21, 2014

 

In a referendum in November, voters approved as many as seven new casinos to join New York State’s existing nine gambling facilities. And New York is hardly alone. In recent years, 23 other states have legalized and licensed commercial (as opposed to Native American) gambling facilities.

 

In the casino-dense Northeast and mid-Atlantic regions, where 26 casinos have opened since 2004 and at least a dozen more are under development, most adults now live within a short drive of one.

 

Not surprisingly, the closer casinos come to where people live, the more likely people are to gamble at one. As casinos have spread into de-industrialized cities, dying resorts and gritty urban areas, the rate of gambling participation has grown among lower-income groups.

 

In America’s increasingly two-tier economy, casino industry leaders realized that they didn’t have to cater exclusively to well-heeled consumers in order to rake in profits. Payday lending, rent-to-own stores, subprime credit cards, auto title loans and tax refund anticipation loans all evolved to extract high profits from low-income groups. And the newly established state-licensed casinos have their methods, too.

 

A research team from the University at Buffalo and SUNY Buffalo State has conducted studies that offer new evidence of the exploitative effects of casino gambling on lower-income Americans. For example, the researchers found that the rates of casino gambling participation and frequency of visits have increased among lower-income groups. Easy access to casinos is a key factor. Living within 10 miles of one or more casinos more than doubles the rate of problems from excessive gambling.

 

Another factor is easy access to slot-machine gambling. Women and the elderly have become more likely to gamble in recent years, partly because of a preference for nonskill slot-machine gambling.

The casinos’ method is to induce low-income gamblers to make a huge number of small bets per visit, to visit the casino several times per month, or even per week, and to sustain this pattern over a period of years. The key to executing this method is the slot machine.

 

Most regional casinos are essentially slot parlors. Slot machines are nowadays sophisticated computerized devices engineered to produce continuous and repeat betting, and programmed by high-tech experts to encourage gamblers to make multiple bets simultaneously by tapping buttons on the console as fast as their fingers can fly. Natasha Dow Schüll, an anthropologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has written the definitive work on gambling-machine design, notes that as gamblers deepen their immersion, they become less interested in winning itself than in simply continuing to play.

 

Slots will accept bets in denominations as small as a penny — one reason they are attractive to small bettors. But even penny bets placed on each of multiple lines for each spin, after hundreds of spins, can result in large losses.

 

The goal, though, is not to clean out the gambler in a single visit; it’s to provide an experience that will induce the gambler to prolong the time spent on the device. The slots achieve this by carefully regulating the rhythm, tempo and sound ambience of the play, while doling out occasional small wins even as the players’ losses slowly increase.

 

One way these computerized pickpockets milk their customers is by generating “near misses,” whereby the spinning symbols on the machine stop just above or below the winning payline. The feeling of having come oh so close to a win prompts further play.

 

A second goal is to ensure that gamblers visit more often and continue to do so over time. Through player loyalty cards and other marketing programs, casinos collect a vast amount of information on their customers. This enables them to devise customized strategies to get gamblers to adhere to this pattern of frequent play over long duration.

 

Casinos also gather information on their customers’ worth, as well as their “predicted lifetime value.” From this information, we might be able to calculate what percentage of customers come from the bottom half of median income distribution, as well as how much these low-income gamblers lose as a percentage of their income. We might also be able to tell how the regional casinos catering to lower-income gamblers are affecting income inequality in their localities.

 

The casinos do not, of course, disclose this information, and the states that share in the revenues generated through gambling losses do not press their commercial partners to do so. As a result, the limited data available to the public on the impact of casino gambling has been gathered by a few outside sources.

 

A large-scale survey of adults, conducted by the Buffalo group in 2000, found that lower socioeconomic and minority groups who visited casinos had more gambling-related problems, including financial difficulties. This suggests that their losses, as a share of their income, were greater than those in the upper income distribution.

 

Examining 15 types of legal gambling, the researchers came to a striking conclusion: Casino gambling had by far the most harmful effects on people at the lower end of the income ladder.

 

Barbara Dafoe Whitehead is the director of civil society initiatives at the Institute for American Values.

Something so addictive even governments can't resist

Something so addictive even governments can't resist (Part 2 of 3)

Friday, May 23, 2014   by: Bob Mihell


Governments are “addicted” to the money generated from legalized gambling in Ontario.

That is the opinion shared by two addictions experts, who nevertheless agree that gambling likely is here to stay.

 

“Governments are addicted to gambling revenue because it is a quick way to raise revenue without raising taxes,” said Nigel Turner, a research scientist with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

 

“It is basically a form of taxation. It taxes people for how bad they are at math. It is a tax on the poor at best.”

 

Don Burditt, manager of addictions for the local program under the auspices of the Sault Area Hospital, agreed that governments are aware there is money to be made from gaming.

He added, however, that the rationale for government-run gambling is that since it is easily accessible anyway, at least they are able to “exert some control over it”.

 

Since 1975, when Ontario offered its first lottery draw, Wintario, gaming opportunities have expanded exponentially.

Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) now employs directly and indirectly 17,000 people in the province, including over 800 in the Sault at OLGs corporate headquarter, and the charity casino.

In total, OLG, a Crown agency, is responsible for 24 gaming sites and the sales of lottery products at about 9,800 retail locations in Ontario.

In the fiscal year ending March 31, 2013, OLG reported revenues totaling $3.4 billion, with net profit to the Province of $1.8 billion.

 

As part of its modernization plan that would see the day to day operation of gambling activities taken over by private companies, the corporation has projected an annual increase in net profits to the province of about $1 billion by 2017-18.

 

That figure was higher in 2012 when OLG’s modernization plan first was unveiled, but the rejection by Toronto and Ottawa city councils of large destination casinos in their downtown core that OLG hoped would attract a new breed of richer and younger gamblers, represents a set-back to the corporation’s plan.

The city of Sault Ste. Marie, as host of an OLG charity casino since 1999, has received $22.7 million in gaming revenue, according to media reports.

Although the tax-free revenue has boosted city coffers, there have been serious consequences for problem gamblers in the Sault and across Ontario.

Since the local casino opened for business, five Sault women with admitted gambling addictions were convicted of defrauding their employers of a total of $1,103,000.

Although those criminal trials grabbed headlines locally, crime is not the most significant risk facing problem gamblers, according to the most recent data on problem gambling in Ontario.

Individuals with evolving gambling problems are at a much higher risk of suffering mental and physical health problems, financial debt or bankruptcy, marriage or family breakdowns, and suicidal thoughts or death, than are non-problem gamblers. (see companion article)

Turner said that when the Sault agreed to establish a casino, a motivating factor was to bring gamblers who were crossing to nearby casinos in Michigan, back to the Canadian side.

 

“The justification for putting in the Sault Ste.Marie casino was all the money was going to the Michigan casinos,” he said. “The alternative was never discussed, which would have been to discourage people from going over to the American side to gamble because it is a losing proposition. That issue never seems to come up in policy discussions.”

 

Joe Fratesi, chief administrative officer for the city, disagreed however, saying that Turner’s alternative was not realistic or doable.

 

“It might have been a different discussion if we weren’t located within an hour drive, five minutes in some instances, of 13 casinos that our people could take advantage of,” he noted. “We received in return none of the benefits from employment. So having a casino in our community at least allows us to have some of the benefits that come from those inclined to spend some of their money in gambling.”

 

Fratesi, who said his viewpoint had not changed, added that likely we would have had problem gamblers with or without the presence of a local charity casino in our city.

 

“It’s a free country and people will do as they please.”

 

Fratesi added that among the points made by the auditor-general in her recent report was that the Sault casino was focused on addressing problem gambling.

 

“I am not sure the same applies to the casinos on the Michigan side,” he said.

Although Paul Pellizari, OLG’s executive director responsible for promoting responsible gambling in Ontario, said the corporation takes it role in reducing the number of problem gamblers very seriously (see related article), Turner and Burditt said the OLG is caught in a paradoxical situation.

On the one hand, they want to attract recreational gamblers to their gaming opportunities, but on the other hand, a large percentage of their revenue comes from addicted gamblers, estimated at 24.1 percent, according to the most recent academic study.

The good news is that problem gambling has shown a steady decline, for a variety of reasons, since it peaked in the mid 1990s.

The problem for the OLG, Turner suggested, is how the corporation can fulfill its promise to raise more revenue for the province without reversing the downward trend in problem gambling.

 

“You pretty much have to addict people if you want to make more money from gambling because that is a large part of where they make the money,” Turner said. “The same problem, by the way, occurs with alcohol. A disproportionate amount of the revenue from alcohol sales comes from people with a drinking problem.”

 

Turner, however, said it is “definitely possible” to reduce the harm. Part of the solution would be to inform problem gamblers that “maybe they are gambling too much” at an earlier stage, before they start to lose control.

 

“That is one of the things OLG say they plan to do,” he said. “I would say OLG is doing better than they were in the past.”

 

Turner said that some problem gambling is inevitable, and the solution is to develop policies that creates a balanced approach.

 

“If you ban all gambling opportunities, you are giving that market to illegal operators.”

 

Meanwhile Pellizzari said the issue of problem gambling is important to the OLGs gaming operations and modernization plan.

 

“For us to derive too much of our revenue from a base of players who have a problem is not a good path for OLG to be on,” he stressed.

He said that there is a perception that OLG is “conflicted” in trying to make money from gambling while promoting responsible gambling.

He said that actually, the opposite was true for two reasons.

First, he said that OLG sites primarily served Ontario residents, and it was in OLG’s best interests, from a mature business standpoint, to broaden its base of people playing in a healthy way, rather than relying on a narrow base of problem gamblers.

Second, Pellizzari said, the OLG would do better on both ends of its mandate, “making money and protecting players”, by having responsible gambling safeguards in place to keep people from getting into trouble and ensuring they remain as customers.

And on a final point, he stressed that when OLG transfers the operations of its casinos and gaming activities to the private sector, that responsible gambling would remain a “pillar” of OLGs future role in protecting the public interest.

He said that there would be an obligation for private contractors both in requests for proposals, and written contracts to abide by OLGs responsible gambling rules, and oversight.

Those agreements would include: “Thou shalt put in responsible gambling centres where OLG says, thou shalt take CAMH training, and thou shalt use the technology we dictate.

*************************

Part 1 - What makes gambling such a problem

 

http://www.sootoday.com/content/news/details.asp?c=73500

FACTS: Don't Gamble Revere!

Loretta LaCentra

According to a recent study by the Institute for American Values, a nonprofit think tank based in New York, the casino explosion is having a profound impact on our society. Among the study’s findings:

• Casino gambling has moved from the margins to the mainstream of American life.

• The new casinos are primarily filled with modern, highly-addictive slot machines and cater overwhelmingly to middle and low rollers who live within an hour away, return frequently, and play the ...slots.

• Casinos depend on pathological and problem gamblers for their revenue base, with these troubled individuals providing 40-60 percent of slot machine profits.

• Living close to a casino increases the chances of developing a gambling addiction.

• Casinos constitute a regressive tax that hits low-income people the hardest, thereby contributing to economic inequality in America.

• The long-term costs of the new casinos exceed their benefits by as much as 3-1.

The new regional and local casinos, the study concludes, drain wealth from communities, weaken nearby businesses and reduce civic participation, family stability, and other forms of social capital that are at the heart of a successful community.

 

 

 

Atlantic City: The Poster Child for Predatory Gambling - You are NO DIFFERENT!

Atlantic City's Last 'Low-Roller' Casino Busts

By Victoria Bekiempis

Filed: 1/16/14 at 12:03 PM

The town is struggling to hold on even as it faces an end to its gaming monopoly. Mel Evans/Associated Press

 

 

A few miles outside Atlantic City, signs along the highway greet gamblers by talking about the people who will scrub their toilets, serve them cocktails and, more often than not, deal them losing hands.

 

“Thank you to our employees! For your dedication and service,” says one billboard for the Atlantic Club Casino Hotel. “Just the best employees in AC” the next line says. “You’re the heart and soul of this place.”

 

Five days before Christmas, the Atlantic Club told more than 1,600 employees they would soon be jobless. The Atlantic Club – the last casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey catering to the “low-rollers” – announced it would close at midnight on January 13, after 33 years in business. Many learned about their impending unemployment in the newspaper or on TV. The club gave union workers $1,500 in severance, plus pay for unused vacation days. The local union gave card-holders $20 grocery store gift cards and help filing for unemployment.

 

The shutdown of Atlantic Club will only exacerbate Atlantic City’s 15.1 percent unemployment rate, said to be the worst in the state, and has spurred whispers of more closings. Atlantic City gaming revenue has spiraled downward since 2006 – from $5.2 billion then to a $2.9 billion in 2013 – because of increased competition from neighboring states. Atlantic City, which now has just 11 casinos, down from 13 at its peak, is also running out of time to maintain its gaming monopoly in New Jersey. In 2010, Governor Chris Christie gave Atlantic City until 2014 to reverse its decline before he’d consider allowing gaming elsewhere in the state. Christie’s initiatives to revive the boardwalk by making it a family-friendly destination have mostly been a bust.

 

At Wonder Bar, a restaurant off the boardwalk that bills itself as the dining destination for locals, employees gathered Sunday night to bid each other a final goodbye. Many told Newsweek they weren’t in a position to hit the ground running with regard to the job search because, what jobs? A casino in Maryland hosted a a few job fairs the week before the closing, but only a few dozen people got work. Besides, who has the money to move?

 

Worse, they said, is that one of the things that helped keep the casino afloat – its close-knit, comfortable, unchanging atmosphere attracted loyal regulars – makes its closing all the more dire for the community. Atlantic Club felt so familial, employees said, because so many families worked there, meaning entire households are out of work.

 

One married couple, who like most didn’t want their names used for fear of jeopardizing their chances of getting new jobs, told Newsweek they didn’t have a plan, or even a plan about how to come up with a plan for finding work.

 

The man, 60, who’d worked at the casino for 20 years, took small sips of beer as he explained that they would file for unemployment the next day and apply for food stamps. They had two adult sons, also out of work, to support, along with three granddaughters and a daughter-in-law. “We have to provide for our kids,” his wife, 57, said. “I don’t know how I’m going to do it.”

 

Their extended family isn’t in much of a position to help them, either. The man’s 65-year-old sister recently lost her grocery store job; though rehired elsewhere, she now makes 30 percent less. Another sister’s husband, who made ball bearings, lost his job when the company moved to the South. His twin brother’s wife, a teacher’s assistant, lost her job, too. Another sister (he’s from a big Irish family, he explained) lost the same job twice. His youngest sister’s husband, who made plastic parts for doors, lost his job when it was shipped to another country.

 

“My father always told me, ‘Life isn’t fair,” the man said, taking another swig.

Several blocks away, back on the boardwalk, things seemed almost normal at the Atlantic Club, which would be bolting the doors in a few hours. Sure, the club’s restaurants had run out of food that afternoon and customers, scurrying to use their comp dollars, drank the Dizzy Dolphin bar dry, but the casino floor buzzed and blinked busily, as if midnight would never come. 

 

One woman at a baccarat table – who was down about $15,000 at 11:30 – wanted to keep playing despite the time. She shouted and mumbled something about wanting her money back, or at least the opportunity to win it back. A pit boss standing behind the dealer joked: “I don’t have any money! I’m unemployed!” and a few moments later, a security guard escorted the woman off the floor.

 

With her exit, the feverish frenzy typical for a casino – even an ailing one– seemed to deflate. Just before midnight, those present counted down from five, with some singing “Auld Lang Syne.” The staff charged with seeing the shutdown through then collected and counted all the chips one last time.

 

Dealers, faces twisted and glistening with tears, hugged each other tightly. Some staff skipped into what seemed to be an area set aside for high-rollers, asking a cop to snap one last photo of them together, their broad smiles belying the mood in the room.

 

As stragglers and observers were corralled out the door and onto the sidewalk, some dawdled in the hotel’s main hall, while others plucked plants from their pots before leaving stepping out into the frigid night.

 

The mirrors and columns and brass in the lobby spoke to the Atlantic Club’s bygone opulence – when Frank Sinatra was on the marquee, not the struggling commuter casino trying to lure slots jockeys with free parking.

 

 

http://www.newsweek.com/atlantic-citys-last-low-roller-casino-busts-226283

 

 

Mohegan Sun's Phony PR

Mohegan Sun's Phony PR!

Worth watching - studies have determined TOURISM doesn't increase [actually decreases, mostly due to increased CRIME], most patrons will be local, sucking $$$ from local businesses....

Mohegan Sun pays so poorly, they recruited OVERSEAS for workers, impacting the public schools, creating substandard housing.....and much else. ...

Connecticut may be the Embezzlement Capital due to Gambling Addiction.

Don't believe me? Have you read the Spectrum Report [prepared for the CT DSR - Dept. of Special Revenue]? The report was limited in scope because Connecticut is CASH-STRAPPED by Tribal Casinos not paying taxes!

Macau to depend on MORE PROFITABLE LOW ROLLERS

Macau Gambling Tycoon's Net Worth Increases Eightfold

By Bruce EinhornJanuary 17, 2014

 

Photograph by Jessica Hromas/Bloomberg

Billionaire Lui Che-Woo

(Corrects rank of Lui Che-Woo relative to Asia's richest man. )

 

Li Ka-shing’s reign as the richest man in Asia may soon come to an end, with the fabled Hong Kong property, shipping, energy, retailing, and telecom tycoon upstaged by a local businessman who has bet big on the gambling boom in Macau. The fortune of Lui Che-Woo, founder of casino operator Galaxy Entertainment Group (27:HK), has rocketed over the past year, with the Hong Kong-listed company’s stock price more than doubling since last March. Today, Galaxy shares rose another 4.6 percent, hitting a new record.

That’s propelled Lui, born in 1929 in southern China’s Guangdong province, to a close second in Asia. This year alone, his net worth has jumped by $3.5 billion to $29.6 billion.

With Macau’s gaming industry likely to enjoy more growth, Lui is well positioned to build on his riches. He owns 65 percent of Galaxy, which is the third-largest casino operator in the former Portuguese colony that is the only place in China with legalized casino gambling. Already the world’s top revenue generator, Macau continues growing, with casinos in the city taking in $45.2 billion last year, 18.6 percent more than a year earlier, according to the Macau Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau.

 

Investors are especially keen on Lui’s Galaxy, which operates a big casino on the Cotai Strip, reclaimed land linking two islands just south of downtown Macau, and is building another scheduled to open next year. “I think investors think of Galaxy as having really grasped the vision of where Macau and in particular Cotai is going,” Bloomberg Industries analyst Tim Craighead told Bloomberg Television today.

The city’s casinos traditionally have relied on high rollers for the bulk of their revenues, but the business is changing and the so-called mass-market sector is becoming more important. VIP guests are less profitable for the Macau casinos, since the companies have to work with junket operators that arrange for those high rollers to travel from the mainland to Macau.

Mainstream gamblers  [LOW ROLLERS] on the other hand, pay their own way to the city, which makes them more lucrative. The profit margin for mass-market gamblers is about three times that of VIPs. Galaxy is “shifting more rapidly than anybody else towards mass market,” according to Craighead. Mass-market customers now account for 51 percent of the company’s profits and 25 percent of revenue, compared with just 30 percent of revenue in 2011.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-01-17/macao-gambling-tycoon-is-now-asias-richest-man

Detroit: Hitching Wagon to Declining Gambling Revenues

Lower casino revenues could mean dwindling jackpot for Detroit

December 21, 2013

By JC Reindl

Detroit Free Press Business Writer

 

The City of Detroit’s financial lifeline for its bankruptcy restructuring — tens of millions in annual taxes from casino gambling — has been faltering as downtown gaming revenue is on pace for its largest annual decline since the first casinos opened in 1999.

Continued creep downward and loss of the tax revenue could mean less money for restructuring Detroit’s city services. Bill Nowling, spokesman for emergency manager Kevyn Orr, said the EM’s office is closely monitoring Detroit’s casino situation.

“If we need to make an adjustment in our (financial) assumptions as a result, we will.”

The fall in business could indicate a shrinking of the casino business market in Detroit and herald fiercer battles for market share of what’s left among the Detroit three — MGM Grand Detroit, MotorCity Casino Hotel and Greektown Casino-Hotel.

■Brian Dickerson:Detroit has gone from being the Motor City to being the Casino City

Gambling revenue this year through November is down 4.3% to $1.2 billion. The state and city split up taxes from the three casinos. Roughly speaking, the state takes about 8% and the city from 10% to 12%, depending on the year and adjusted gross gaming revenue for each casino. The lower the revenue, the lower the tax receipts.

Orr this week called Detroit’s cut — $171 million in 2012 — one of the city’s most important revenue streams, representing about 14% of the total money coming in each year. But it has been sliding, down from $177 million in 2011.

“Without it, the city couldn’t operate,” Orr said Wednesday in bankruptcy court testimony.

Non-gaming revenue from hotel rooms, food sales and other sources at the three casino sites are not part of the equation.

Detroit’s lawyers are hoping to set aside a large portion of the taxes for improving dismal city services, if a federal bankruptcy judge allows a deal to go through that would release the casino tax revenue back to the city. The tax stream was pledged as collateral in 2009 for a massive city debt that came due.

To be sure, with $1.4 billion in total gambling revenues last year, the three casinos are still serious cash-generators and in no danger of closing. Still, their significant drop in revenue could have direct effects on the quality of Detroit’s amenities and resident services as the city aims to emerge from bankruptcy with sustainable finances.

Gambling industry experts and casino operators blame most of the decrease on the four new Ohio casinos, particularly Hollywood Casino Toledo, which let northwest Ohio residents gamble closer to home.

Another factor was the January expiration of the Social Security payroll tax cut, which was worth about $1,000 to a worker making $50,000 a year. The growing proliferation of casino gambling nationwide has also cut into gaming revenues for many regional-draw casinos nationwide such as Detroit’s.

Greater competition

It has been a down year for all three casinos.

Gambling revenues through November were 5.3% lower at MGM Grand than a year ago and 6.7% lower at Greektown, according to the Michigan Gaming Control Board.

MotorCity Casino had the smallest decline at about one-half of 1%. But it also paid for promotions and giveaways: Overall net revenues, which include food and beverage and hotel stays, were down 8% as of June 30, while the casino’s promotional expenses grew, according to figures compiled by BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research.

MotorCity also spent money this year on hundreds of new slot machines and to update the design of its gaming floors to draw in more gaming dollars.

“It’s definitely become more expensive to operate in the Detroit market, which happens whenever competition heats up, as it did with Toledo,” said Jenny Holaday, MotorCity’s senior vice president of operations.

Industry experts say revenues are down in regional-draw casino markets across the country, and especially so in areas such as Michigan and Indiana, where local properties have new competitors.

More casinos on way

There are now nearly 1,000 casinos within 41 states (including tribal lands) with more soon to open when Massachusetts becomes the 42nd state. The Kentucky state Legislature is debating whether to put legalized casinos on the ballot next fall.

Michigan has 22 tribal casinos within its boundaries, with FireKeepers Casino near Battle Creek the closest to Detroit.

New casinos lead to more new casinos. Just as the Windsor casino spurred efforts for Detroit’s casinos, officials often contend that their city or state must build its own casinos in response to neighboring casinos to recapture the gambling dollars (and potential tax revenues) that are flowing across their borders.

But each new property means less potential business for the others.

From an economics standpoint, communities hosting casinos want visitors from as far away as possible so that gambling proceeds are “new” money and not local dollars that would otherwise be spent elsewhere in the community.

“There are many markets where saturation has been reached or is close to being reached,” said Joseph Weinert, executive vice president of New Jersey-based Spectrum Gaming Group. “All things being equal, customers will chose to gamble at the casino closest to their home.”

The shine may already be wearing off Toledo’s new casino, which opened in spring 2012.

The casino’s third-quarter revenue was down 15% from a year earlier to $48.9 million, according to corporate filings by its owner, Penn National Gaming.

Caesars Entertainment does not give financials for Caesars Windsor in its filings, although the gaming company itself reported a $761-million third-quarter loss.

Hotels hurt profits

Insiders say Detroit’s casinos were most profitable in their early years when they operated in temporary facilities and before they took on debt to build large and expensive permanent digs.

Politics played a role in the grandeur and size of the properties, as each one was mandated to have conference space and no fewer than 400 hotel rooms to provide amenities thought to be lacking in the city at the time.

A deal negotiated by former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick got the casinos out of an 800-room requirement in exchange for, among other things, $102 million cash to help balance Detroit’s budget.
“All of them were making a big profit before the permanent facilities, and all of them were in trouble when they went to the large, fancy facilities,” said Jacob Miklojcik, a Lansing-based gaming consultant.

Although none of the casinos discloses hotel occupancy rates, Miklojcik suspects that the 400-room hotel mandate was still too big and wouldn’t have happened if the casinos had a choice. “Some of those are pretty massive costs per key,” he said.

Both MGM Grand and MotorCity opened their temporary locations in 1999 and full properties in 2007 — just in time for the recession.

“The bottom fell out right when everyone’s permanent facilities came online,” said Holaday, the MotorCity executive.

Greektown was the last casino to open, in 2000, and did not transition to its full facility until 2009. It is the smallest property of the three.

Despite shedding $500 million in debt during bankruptcy, Greektown’s finances are still somewhat precarious, and the casino hasn’t reported an operating profit since emerging from Chapter 11 in 2010.

Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert bought Greektown this spring through his casino business, Rock Gaming, which has made management changes and plans “significant” renovations next year to the casino property. Rock Gaming owns two of the four Ohio casinos, in Cleveland and Cincinnati.

In an interview, Rock Gaming CEO Matt Cullen said he doesn’t believe Detroit’s casino market will continue shrinking.

“I don’t think we agree that the size of the pie has gotten smaller and will stay smaller,” Cullen said.

“There are a lot of people still that are rediscovering the city of Detroit and who are coming down here that haven’t come down here for a long time. And there’s still people that don’t come down here.”

http://www.freep.com/article/20131220/NEWS01/312200116

 

MGM Resorts wins right to build casino near D.C.

MGM Resorts wins right to build casino near Washington, D.C. • 2:15 PM

• Regulators in Maryland select MGM Resorts (MGM +0.3%) as the casino operator which will be allowed to build the newest complex in the state.
• The land allotted for the project is situated just across the Potomac River from Washington D.C.
• Early information from MGM indicates the complex will have a hotel, high-end shopping, and a casino with 3,600 slot machines and 140 table games.
• Penn National Gaming (PENN +0.1%) was left on the outside looking in.
• The Maryland gaming commission's take: "MGM has a better approach...MGM will attract high rollers."

OH?

 

Maine senator says gambling supporters ‘sidelined’ economic study panel

Maine senator says gambling supporters ‘sidelined’ economic study panel

By Scott Thistle, Sun Journal

 

Posted Nov. 26, 2013

 

AUGUSTA, Maine — State Sen. John Patrick, D-Rumford, said he’s throwing in the towel on a special legislative commission that was meant to examine the economic effect of gambling in Maine and New England.

 

The panel, created by a state law passed earlier this year, included nonelected representatives of those with vested interests in gambling, including Maine’s American Indian tribes and the two casinos already operating in the state. Also on the commission were representatives for Maine’s harness racing industry and four state lawmakers.

 

Patrick, the chairman of the panel, says the commission’s work was “sidelined” when a majority of its members shifted the focus from a close inspection on what casino gambling has meant for Maine and what its future would look like as other New England states look to add to gambling facilities to a focus on how to expand gambling in the Pine Tree State.

 

“No experts were called to testify. No data was collected. No research was discussed,” Patrick wrote in a guest opinion column for the Sun Journal. “It was a simple power grab on the part of a few self-serving individuals who were willing to undermine an entire process for their own personal gain.”

 

The main focus of the law setting up the commission, LD 1897, was to develop a competitive bidding process for any gambling expansion going forward.

 

So far, Maine’s two casinos have been approved by statewide referendum.

 

According to Patrick, the panel was established to:

 

• Examine the effect of existing casinos on state and local economies and any other legal gambling conducted in Maine.

• Examine the effect of the establishment of casinos in New Hampshire, Massachusetts and the Canadian provinces bordering Maine.

• Gather information to determine the potential market for gambling opportunities in Maine.

• Consider the feasibility of licensing expanded gambling activities by groups who are already eligible to operate games of chance, beano, high-stakes beano, harness racing and off-track betting.

 

“While there were a number of issues we agreed to take on,” Patrick wrote, “the primary task was to review the research, hear expert opinion and gather information about the question of expanding gaming, and what kind of impact expansion would have on our state and on the existing gaming venues.”

 

Patrick, who also serves on the Legislature’s Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee, which has oversight of gambling in the state, said he will continue to pursue the commission’s original task as a member of that committee when the Legislature reconvenes in January.

 

“That’s the good news,” Patrick wrote. “The gaming industry in Maine, whether you approve of gambling or not, is now an important revenue stream, employing nearly 1,000 Mainers. It’s important that we get it right.”

 

Dennis Bailey, a longtime casino opponent and public relations expert, also served on the 20-member panel.

 

In an email message Tuesday, Bailey said he agreed with Patrick’s view and decision to fold the commission.

 

“The commission could have fostered a much needed policy discussion of gambling casinos in Maine and their impact,” Bailey wrote. “Instead, Scarborough Downs and its allies rushed through a wide-scale proposal that essentially would put a casino on every street corner in Maine. Once the process was hijacked, there was really nothing left for the commission to do.”

 

Bailey said he believed Gov. Paul LePage and the Legislature would ignore the commission’s work and instead form a new independent panel to complete the original objectives of LD 1897.

 

According to minutes from the commission’s Sept. 27 meeting, Peter Connell, a representative for Ocean Properties and the hospitality industry, made a motion to make a seven-point recommendation to the Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee that included allowing four more entities to apply for casino licenses.

 

Connell’s motion included a resort racino with table games for southern Maine, slot machines and table games for the Passamaquoddy Tribe, the Penobscot Nation and the Houlton Band of Maliseets.

 

The motion also would have allowed nonprofit veterans organizations to apply for licenses to operate slot machines.

 

The motion, seconded by Rep. Wayne Mitchell, the Penobscot Nation’s representative to the Legislature, passed on an 8-10 vote despite warnings that the motion did not encompass the commission’s stated task in statute.

 

According to the minutes, several members felt the motion was premature but others felt the commission had only been established to protect the interests of Maine’s already existing casinos in Oxford and Bangor for the next four to five years.

 

Under the law that set up the commission, it was allowed to hold up to six meetings but held only four.

 

Connell, who was on the panel because his company previously supported the creation of a southern Maine casino in Biddeford, said Tuesday he was disappointed with Patrick’s characterization of how things transpired with the commission.

 

“With all due respect, when the majority of the people on the committee wanted to move forward that really doesn’t rise to the level of hijacking,” Connell said. “The majority wanted to continue the meetings.”

 

Connell also said that Mitchell made a motion at the fourth meeting to continue the meetings and to move forward with a report but that did not transpire.

 

“So the idea that the majority [of the commission] had anything to do with the commission ceasing was completely wrong,” Connell said.

 

He also said Patrick’s assertion that there wasn’t any data collected and that people were not heard from was also incorrect.

 

Mitchell said Tuesday he believed if there was any blame to be placed for the commission’s failure it rested squarely on the shoulders of Patrick and the commission’s co-chairman, Rep. Louis Luchini, D-Ellsworth.

 

Mitchell said the seven-point plan put forward by Connell was meant to be an outline for discussion points, not recommendations for the Legislature.

 

“It was a plan and not power grab as [Patrick] said,” Mitchell said.

 

Mitchell said he voted for Connell’s motion because it was the first actual step forward in moving the commission toward its assigned mission.

 

Mitchell said he was in the hospital for the first two meetings of the commission but followed it online and determined they had done relatively little work.

 

“Nothing had been done at all prior,” Mitchell said. “There was absolutely nothing done. It’s unfortunate. Not only unfortunate for the interests that were represented there but unfortunate for the people of Maine. I think Sen. Patrick’s statements are way off base.”

 

Mitchell and Connell seemed to agree the way forward would be — as Patrick suggested — to address the issue in a series of bills that were carried over for consideration in 2014 by the Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee.

http://bangordailynews.com/2013/11/26/business/maine-senator-says-gambling-supporters-sidelined-economic-study-panel/



Report: Gambling in Maine rose nearly 67 percent in 2012

By Adolfo Flores, Los Angeles Times

More gamblers are hitting the slots and blackjack tables in the U.S., giving the industry a 4.8 percent boost in 2012, its biggest since the recession.

Consumer spending at casinos grew to $37.3 billion, slightly below the industry’s 2007 record high at $37.5 billion, according to a report released Monday from the American Gaming Association.

The boost is due to an improving economy and increased consumer spending, the trade group said.

Revenues are also up because of the opening of new casinos in markets such as New York City, Kansas and Ohio.

However the rise in new casinos in the mid-Atlantic region contributed to decreased revenues in Delaware and New Jersey.

“After three years of increasing growth and positive signs in all sectors of the industry, it’s clear that we have weathered the recession,” said Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr., president and CEO of AGA, in a statement.

“Whether we look at jobs, casino visitors served or tax revenues being provided, the bottom line is that there is much to be optimistic about in the commercial casino industry.”

Fifteen of the 22 states that had commercial casinos in 2011 saw increases. Kansas saw the largest boost at 603.7 percent, followed by Maryland and Maine with 142.6 percent and 66.9 percent surges, respectively.

This was driven by the opening of new casinos or casinos that had their first full year of operations, according to AGA.

In 2012 the Garden State saw the largest drop in profits, down 8 percent in gross gaming, as it dealt with days of casino closings and reduced tourism following Hurricane Sandy.

Nevada, the biggest gambling market with 265 operating casinos, experienced a 1.5 percent increase in gross gaming revenue in 2012 at $10.9 billion.

While revenues grew, gaming industry-related jobs fell by 0.9 percent from 2011. The more than 332,000 people who are employed by the industry earned $13.2 billion in wages, benefits and tips in 2012.

http://bangordailynews.com/2013/05/07/business/report-gambling-in-maine-rose-nearly-67-percent-in-2012/?ref=relatedBox

Gambling puts us all at risk

Robert Steele and Tony Hwang: Gambling puts us all at risk

Published 5:38 pm, Friday, October 25, 2013

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, which led to an explosion of Indian and commercial casinos across the country.

In 1988, only two states allowed casinos, Nevada and New Jersey. Today 39 states have casinos, and we now have nearly 1,000 of them, almost evenly divided between Indian and commercial.

Nowhere did casino gambling get off to a more spectacular start than in Connecticut. Foxwoods, owned by the Mashantucket Pequots, opened in 1992 and Mohegan Sun, owned by the Mohegans, opened in 1996.

They were the first casinos in the Northeast outside Atlantic City and quickly grew into the two largest casinos in the world -- drawing over half their combined customers from outside Connecticut, creating 20,000 casino jobs, and sending hundreds of millions of dollars a year in shared slot revenue to the state.

They also have a serious downside, however. They have created a pervasive gambling culture in southeastern Connecticut; they've skewed the region's economy heavily toward low-paying service jobs; and they were followed by a sharp spike in the number of state residents seeking treatment for gambling addiction. According to a 2009 state-sponsored study, there had been a 400 percent increase in arrests for embezzlement since Foxwoods opened, a rate of increase 10 times the national average.

The numbers prompted a columnist for The Day in New London to describe southeastern Connecticut as the embezzlement capital of America.

As far back as 1997, Congress was so concerned about the spread of casino gambling that it set up a national commission to study the issue.

That commission subsequently recommended a moratorium on new casinos until the government could get a better handle on their social and economic costs. Additionally, the commission recommended banning credit card and ATM use at casinos, prohibiting aggressive casino advertising and restricting political contributions by the gambling industry to guard against political corruption.

None of these recommendations were ever implemented, and casinos have continued to multiply.

Now a new study published by The Council on Casinos, an independent, nonpartisan group of scholars assembled by the Institute for American Values, contains a serious new warning about casino expansion.

"From time to time," the council states "a new institution takes root across the country, and in doing so changes the nation, changes the physical landscape of communities, impacts the patterns and habits of daily life, affects citizens' and communities' economic outcomes, and even alters relationships" among its citizens.

That is precisely what is happening with casinos, according to the study, with states' hunger for casino revenue creating a host of problems, from fostering gambling addiction to draining wealth from lower-income people and contributing to economic inequality in America.

Among the council's key findings:

Once a largely occasional upper-class activity, casino gambling has moved from the margins to the mainstream of American life.

The new American casino is primarily filled with highly addictive slot machines. It caters overwhelmingly to middle- and low-rollers who live within an hour away, return frequently, and play the slots.

Modern slot machines have transformed American gambling. They have become sophisticated computers, engineered to create fast, continuous, and repeat betting designed to get players to gamble longer and lose more over time.

Problem gamblers (those with moderate and severe gambling addiction) account for 40-60 percent of slot machine revenues.

Living close to a casino increases the chance of becoming a problem gambler.

Casinos extract wealth from communities, weaken nearby businesses, and reduce voluntarism, civic participation, family stability and other forms of social capital.

Casinos are the creation of government and its public policies, and constitute a regressive tax that particularly impacts low-wage earners, retirees, minorities and women.

As a result of the weak economy and growing competition from casinos in other states, slot revenue at Connecticut's casinos is down over 30 percent from its peak (with the state's share dropping from $430 million to under $300 million) and is projected to continue to decline as Massachusetts and other states open casinos. With Connecticut's casino monopoly gone and mounting evidence of gambling's negative impact, one would hope the state would focus on finding non-gambling solutions to compensate for its shrinking slot receipts.

Instead, our state government appears determined to double down and promote more gambling. It recently increased the casinos' free-play allowance so they can beef up promotions and has begun to put the state in the electronic casino gambling business.

In the last days of the legislative session, Gov. Dannel Malloy and the majority leadership pushed through a gambling game called keno (essentially electronic bingo) for restaurants, bars, taverns and convenience stores.

They claim it will produce $31 million in its first two years, but keno was never discussed by the appropriate committees, was not included in the legislative budget, and was never proposed at any time until the final budget document was made public on the day of the vote. Mary Drexler, executive director of the Connecticut Council on Problem Gambling, has called the decision to legalize keno "astounding," given its addictiveness and the problems it will create.

Then the next day a group of legislators proposed introducing video slots in Connecticut, beginning at the old dog track in Bridgeport, Sports Haven in New Haven, and the Bradley Teletheater in Windsor Locks.

Still more troubling, Nevada and New Jersey recently legalized in-state online gambling for their casinos, and Governor Malloy has indicated he favors doing the same for Connecticut's casinos. The casinos want it in order to attract younger customers, and experts view it as especially addictive because of the fast pace of the games, their 24-hour availability and the instant gratification aspect of the action.
 
It is clearly time for an open and vigorous public debate on the future of state-sponsored gambling in Connecticut, including the extent to which we should try to prop up the casinos, whether to implement or kill keno, what to do about video slots, and whether it is in the state's interest to legalize Internet casino gambling.

Robert Steele, of Essex, represented eastern Connecticut in Congress from 1970 to 1974 and is the author of "The Curse: Big-Time Gambling's Seduction of a Small New England Town" (Levellers Press). State Rep. Tony Hwang is in his third term in the Connecticut General Assembly and represents the 134th District, which includes portions of Fairfield and Trumbull.


http://www.ctpost.com/opinion/article/Robert-Steele-and-Tony-Hwang-Gambling-puts-us-4926773.php

More Gambling A Bad Bet......For Any State

Robert Steele is a great speaker! Great book! It should be on everyone's 'Must Read' list.

More Gambling A Bad Bet For Connecticut

OP-ED

 

October 14, 2013|By ROBERT STEELE AND TONY HWANG | OP-ED, The Hartford Courant

Sixteen years ago, Congress was so concerned about the spread of casino gambling that it set up a commission to study the issue.

In 1999, the commission recommended a moratorium on new casinos until the government could get a better handle on their social and economic costs. In addition, the commission recommended banning credit card and ATM use at casinos, prohibiting aggressive casino advertising and restricting political contributions by the gambling industry to guard against political corruption.

None of the recommendations were implemented, and casinos continue to multiply. We have nearly 1,000 of them, almost evenly divided between Indian and non-Indian operators.

Now a study of government-sponsored casino gambling was just published by The Council on Casinos, an independent, nonpartisan group of scholars assembled by the Institute for American Values, a New York based nonprofit whose mission is "to study and strengthen civil society."

"From time to time," the council states "a new institution takes root across the country, and in doing so changes the nation — changes the physical landscape of communities, impacts the patterns and habits of daily life, affects citizens' and communities' economic outcomes, and even alters relationships" among its citizens.

That is what casinos are doing, according to the study. States' hunger for casino revenue creates a host of problems, from fostering gambling addiction to draining wealth from lower-income people and contributing to economic inequality in America.

Among the council's key findings:

•Once a largely upper-class activity, casino gambling moved to the mainstream of American life.

•The American casino is primarily filled with highly addictive slot machines. It caters overwhelmingly to middle and low rollers who live within an hour's drive away, return frequently and play the slots.

•Modern slot machines transformed American gambling. They are sophisticated computers, engineered to create fast, continuous betting designed to get players to gamble longer and lose more.

•Problem gamblers (those with moderate and severe gambling addiction) account for 40 percent to 60 percent of slot machine revenue.

•Problem gambling leads to debt, bankruptcies, broken families and crime.

•Casinos extract wealth from communities, weaken nearby businesses and reduce voluntarism, civic participation, family stability and other forms of social capital.

•Casinos are the creation of government and its public policies, have a negative long-term economic impact and constitute a regressive tax.

As the result of the weak economy and growing competition, slot revenue at Connecticut's two casinos is down more than 30 percent from its peak (with the state's share dropping from $430 million annually to under $300 million). With Connecticut's casino monopoly gone and mounting evidence of gambling's negative impact, the state should focus on finding non-gambling revenue to replace its shrinking slot receipts.

Instead, our government appears determined to double down and promote more gambling. It recently increased the casinos' free play allowance so they can beef up promotions and has begun to put the state in the electronic casino gambling business.

For starters, the Connecticut recently legalized keno (essentially electronic bingo) for restaurants, bars, taverns and convenience stores. The next day a group of legislators proposed installing video slot machines in Connecticut's OTB parlors.

Still more troubling, Nevada and New Jersey recently legalized in-state online gambling for their casinos, and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has indicated he favors doing the same for Connecticut's casinos.

The casinos want it to attract a broader and younger audience, and experts view it as particularly addictive because of the fast pace, 24-hour availability and the instant gratification.

The legislature approved keno in the wee morning hours without notice or hearings and after apparently making a secret deal to share the profits with Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun. Given the administration's proclivity for backroom deals, the danger is that Connecticut residents will wake up one morning with video slot parlors and Internet gambling without ever having a chance to voice their opposition.

It is not too late to kill keno and begin a vigorous public debate on the future of state-sponsored gambling in Connecticut.

Robert Steele of Essex was a Republican U.S. congressman from eastern Connecticut from 1970 to 1974 and is the author of "The Curse: Big-Time Gambling's Seduction of a Small New England Town." State Rep. Tony Hwang, R-Fairfield, is a member of the Public Safety and Security Committee, which oversees gambling.

http://articles.courant.com/2013-10-14/news/hc-op-steele-hwang-connecticut-needs-to-reassess-g-20131014_1_casino-gambling-casino-revenue-slot-machine-revenue

 

Do You Want Casinos? Have You Signed The Petition?

Sign your name and speak out so we don't have to subsidize wealthy casino owners!

Do You Want Casinos?

Activists launch a campaign to get a casino question before voters across the state.

Tuesday, October 08, 2013
By Maureen Turner

 

Jennifer Levesque illustration

Last month, Attorney General Martha Coakley ruled that a proposed 2014 ballot question that sought to make casinos illegal in Massachusetts was unconstitutional. But proponents of the question were not about to take no for an answer.

 

The ballot initiative was the work of Repeal the Casino Deal, a statewide coalition of activists who want to overturn the 2011 legislation that authorized three casinos and one slots parlor in the commonwealth. While that legislation grants residents of communities where casinos are proposed the right to vote on the matter, the controversial casino question has never come up for a statewide vote—a serious omission, say casino opponents, who note that the effects of expanded gambling will be felt by all Massachusetts residents, businesses and property owners.

 

“This impacts everyone, bar none,” said Kathleen Conley Norbut, a Monson resident and leader in the anti-casino movement. “This is not a local or even a regional decision—it impacts the entire culture of the commonwealth.”

 

The question was submitted to the AG’s office for approval this summer. But in a Sept. 4 letter to the proponents, Coakley wrote that the question could not move forward, saying it would amount to an unconstitutional taking of the private property rights of would-be casino developers.

 

Repeal the Casino Deal responded quickly, filing for an injunction against the AG’s decision from the Supreme Judicial Court. Coakley agreed to the injunction, which allows the ballot question campaign to proceed while the challenge awaits a hearing before the court. The casino opponents—like the groups behind 27 other questions proposed for the 2014 ballot—now face the daunting task of submitting 68,911 petition signatures to the Secretary of State by Dec. 4. If they meet that threshold, the SJC will rule on the matter; if not, the court case will be moot.

 

Conley Norbut is optimistic about the signature drive. “We have an army set up,” she said, with volunteers coordinating signature collections across the state as well as a social media campaign (including a Repeal the Casino Deal Facebook page and website).

 

“If anyone cares about democracy, they will sign this petition, they will help us get signatures so we can have a statewide vote,” Conley Norbut said.

Repeal the Casino Deal has a long list of concerns about what casinos would do to Massachusetts, from the environmental effects to the social problems caused by gambling addiction to the stress casinos would place on the public infrastructure. “Las Vegas was built in a desert for a reason,” Conley Norbut said—not in established New England communities with already strained colonial-era traffic routes.

 

Another key difference, Conley Norbut noted: Vegas was designed as a destination that would bring visitors in from around the world; the kinds of casinos proposed in Massachusetts won’t draw tourists from far-flung places, especially as more and more nearby states adopt their own gambling legislation, saturating the region with casinos.

 

“People are not flying from Bangkok to Palmer to gamble, and people are not flying from Paris to Springfield to go to a casino,” she said. “The current model is really about local low-rollers,” who will spend their disposable income at the slots and tables—and shops and restaurants maintained on-site by the casinos—rather than at local businesses.

 

And when local businesses lose income, Conley Norbut continued, that results in less tax revenue for municipalities and the state. Likewise, she said, government and property owners alike will lose if a nearby casino drives down property values. Earlier this year, the Realtor Association of the Pioneer Valley released a study, prepared by the National Association of Realtors, that described the effect of casinos on the housing market as “unambiguously negative,” reducing home values in the host community by 1.1 to 2.3 percent.

 

Making it all worse, Conley Norbut said, is the government’s direct role in all this, starting with the governor and legislative leaders who pushed the law through, creating a monopoly situation for a small handful of giant casino companies. “The state moves from being the protector of the people—consumers, small businesses—and a regulator, to a partner of the gambling industry,” she said. And the host community agreements negotiated between casino developers and the cities and towns where they want to build “make the municipality a partner that is compelled to promote and promulgate the casino, even if it’s in the worst interest of its citizens and other [government] departments,” she said.

Meanwhile, the Mass. Gaming Commission, which is expected to award the casino licenses next year, also acts as an enabler of the casino industry, Conley Norbut said. “The mission of the Gaming Commission is not to regulate, not to oversee, not to be a watchdog—we have none of that in Massachusetts,” she said. Rather, the board has been charged with implementing the legislation allowing casinos in the state: “That means they’ve a vested interest in having the casinos open, regardless of the taxpayers, citizens, residents, communities that are sacrificed.”

 

Casino developers point to the number of jobs their projects would create, an incentive that’s compelling in places with high unemployment rates such as Springfield, which approved a host community agreement with MGM in July. Those jobs would include both permanent casino positions and short-term construction jobs, which have won over many in organized labor.

 

But casino opponents question the number and quality of the jobs promised, and argue that the most significant flow of money will be from low-income gamblers to casino executives and the lobbyists and lawyers on their payrolls.

 

“It is the most abysmal shift of wealth from lower-income and working poor people to the wealthy that we have seen,” Conley Norbut said.

Repeal the Casino Deal’s campaign is an attempt to give voters a voice in the casino debate, “to be able to vote on something that impacts all of us culturally, financially, politically,” Conley Norbut said.

 

The group is heartened by the results of some recent local gambling-related votes: last month, West Springfield voters rejected Hard Rock’s casino plan at the site of the Big E, and in August, at a special Town Meeting, Tewksbury voters shot down a proposed slots parlor in their town. Even the results of Springfield’s casino vote indicated strong opposition; while MGM won the day, 42 percent of voters cast ballots against it—this despite the millions the casino company spent on PR efforts, compared to the couple of thousand spent by opponents, and despite what Conley Norbut described as the decidedly pro-casino bias in the Springfield Republican and other mainstream media.

 

“Average, intelligent people did their research, and they came up with the rational answer,” Conley Norbut said. She believes the same will happen with the 2014 statewide ballot question—if, that is, it reaches the ballot.

 

“This is a very real, tangible movement by regular people, taxpayers and citizens, to have a voice in their own government,” Conley Norbut said. “That’s exactly what this petition is about: we want our voice at the ballot, not politicians that have campaign contributions, that have connections with a powerful industry. This is about whether or not not just Massachusetts, but the United States, is still a democracy. It’s really nothing short of that.”•

 

 

http://www.valleyadvocate.com/article.cfm?aid=17242#.UlbqZb__FzB.facebook