Turmoil continues to plague the Urban One/Churchill Downs casino campaign in Richmond. Or should the billing be reversed? That’s at the core of a brilliantly researched op-ed piece by Joshua Stanfield, who casts a gimlet eye over the project’s financials. Seems that Urban One and CHDN are soft-pedaling the Black-ownership angle in the current election campaign … and with good reason: African-American equity in the new project has gone from a near-total amount in 2021 to 47% this time around. Buried in a footnote on the official paperwork for Richmond Grand Casino & Resort is the disclosure that Urban One has $50 million in borrowing capacity to put toward the $562.5 million casino. Churchill Downs has $1.2 billion. Who’s likelier to end up with a majority stake?
There’s more. Urban One may not be in this for the long haul. It wisely invested $40 million in MGM National Harbor. But it cashed out last April for $137 million. Stanfield fears the company may pull a bait-and-switch in Richmond, putting money down now in order to exit with a tidy profit later. There’s nothing wrong with that per se … unless you’ve positioned yourself as the savior of the minority community but actually aren’t planning to be around, long term. Let’s hope Urban One CEO Alfred Liggins is more committed to Richmond than he was to Washington, D.C.
Lastly, Churchill Downs may have some skeletons in its closet with regard to minority issues. Activist Carmen Jones, interviewed by Louisville Public Media, “said Black and Brown workers employed by the track continue to be underpaid and exploited by Churchill Downs. Valets who saddle up the horses threatened to strike this year over the track’s failure to negotiate a new contract and improve wages, though they ultimately decided to work.” Sounds like CHDN has some self-improvement to do before it descends upon Richmond as an uplifter of the Great Unwashed.
A grand opening … well, a ribbon-cutting, was held for Bally’s Casino this week and the company was able to trot out Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) to shill for Bally’s Corp., with Chairman Soo Kim on hand to soak up all the compliments. For his part, Kim allowed that the casino was drawing “a slightly different crowd” than Bally’s usually attracts. The good news is they’re young inhabitants of the River North area, where Medinah Temple sits. That’s a tacit admission that Bally’s Casino isn’t the commuter-gambler magnet that former mayor Lori Lightfoot imagined it would be. Which is what happens when you open a casino in a parking-challenged part of town, to reward a political benefactor. For the sake of eventual Bally’s Chicago, one hopes the $1.7 billion investment includes a sizable parking garage. The youthful appeal of Bally’s Casino is good news for the company, the apparent indifference of drive-in customers not so much.
For his part, Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) boycotted the ceremony but, in a prepared statement, took credit for Bally’s Casino and its hoped-for rescue of Chicago‘s beleaguered pension funds. The Windy City is counting on $50 million a year from the temporary in taxes and $200 million from the permanent casino. For those numbers to pan out, Kim has to hit $800 million a year at the megaresort, no small order, even with a monopoly on downtown Chicago.
From Soo to suits we go, as in lawsuits. Nine of them have been filed to date against Caesars Entertainment and MGM Resorts International over data breaches that occurred in a pair of September cyberattacks. Given some of the rudimentary player data that was plundered, along with God only knows what else, cybersecurity at these firms seems to be somewhere between indifferent and nonexistent. The initial lawsuit was filed Sept. 18 and by Sept. 29 eight more plaintiffs had piled on. The latest lawsuit is from customer David Lackey, whose driver’s license and Social Security numbers were pilfered from the Caesars Entertainment database. Caesars, you will recall, cravenly paid ransom (believed to be at least $15 million) in return for a promise from the brigands that they would surrender stolen data. Scout’s honor. Lackey was already suing MGM for similar reasons.
Another suit, which ropes in landlord Vici Properties, accuses the companies of skimping on cybersecurity and dodging Federal Trade Commission requirements in that respect. Since both MGM and Caesars have been hellbent on cost containment (possibly at the expense of risk containment), that suit may have merit. The plaintiffs, some of whom have been phished past the point of bearing, are all seeking monetary damages. What else can they do?
In closing, we’d like to thank Station Casinos for chipping $100,000 into the Clark County School District‘s “Backpack for Kids” drive. As Station states, the program “ensures that low-income students who receive free or reduced-price school meals through CCSD continue to receive healthy food during the weekend or long breaks from school.” At a time when government support and assistance can no longer be relied upon, we salute Station for stepping up to the plate.
Where they are building the new Bally’s casino there is plenty of room for a parking garage so as long as its around 10 to 12 stories tall that should provide plenty of parking. When I stopped by last month at the temporary Bally’s casino most of the people were younger and probably lived in the area just like the newspaper article said. Taking the Brown or Red Line train is another option also and is much easier than looking for parking downtown.