How the Grinch stole Dallas

It didn’t take long for Dr. Miriam Adelson to become the most hated person in Dallas, possibly even in all of Texas. In a move of apparent perversity, she shipped star Dallas Mavericks player Luka Doncic off to the Los Angeles Lakers in return for one older, oft-injured player, sabotaging Mavs fans’ hopes in the process. As 27% owner of the Mavericks, Mark Cuban has to wear some of the opprobrium for this but the majority of the ownership (and blame) are securely Mrs. Adelson’s, proving yet again that there’s nothing worse than a rich idiot.

But there may be an even more perverse endgame at work in the Widow Adelson’s malefic brain, including the possibility of a petty, one-sided feud with Doncic’s native Slovenia. She also desperately covets at least one mega-casino in the Lone Star State. With all the finesse of a Mafia shakedown, she sent this message to Texans: “Nice team you’ve got there. Be a shame if something happened to it.” Yes, Adelson is apparently trashing her own asset (the Mavs) for the greater glory of her other plaything, Las Vegas Sands.

The Mavs had to take to social media to head off one theory: That Adelson was dismantling the team in order to lay the groundwork for moving it to Las Vegas. There are several problems with that line of thinking. There is no NBA arena in Sin City, nor even the realistic hope of one. (T-Mobile Arena is basketball-friendly, but that’s MGM Resorts International territory.) Also, Adelson and Sands no longer have a power base in Las Vegas, if they ever did, having cashed out of the Las Vegas Strip in favor of Singapore and Macao. All they have is a corporate headquarters and several score of lobbyists down in Austin, pestering the Lege.

Theorist Christopher Kratovil argues that “where the carrot has failed [in Texas], they need a stick. That stick is the threat to move the Mavs to Vegas unless they get what they want.” Unfortunately for Kratovil, the New York Post doesn’t believe in fact-checking. No, the Adelson clan does not “own and operate casinos in the Venetian hotels, Sands Casinos in Las Vegas and Pennsylvania.” They haven’t been in Pennsylvania for years. Or at the Venetian. And the “Sands Casinos [sic]” hasn’t existed since Sheldon Adelson blew it up back in the late 20th century. So much for “their stability in Sin City,” as the Post fancifully puts it. While the idea of a Las Vegas Mavericks appears to be a mirage, Kratovil IS onto something here.

Yes, the Mavs are a stick, one for beating the Lege into submission. But, with characteristic Adelsonian ineptitude, Mrs. Miriam has chosen the worst possible juncture for trying to play the heavy. Recent polling shows that 74% of Texans support casinos (enough for a constitutional amendment to pass), those same Texans that Dr. Adelson is busy pissing off. Sports betting online is a heavier lift, mustering 60%—enough to barely squeak by at the ballot box—and walk-up sports betting looks like a constitutional loser, with just 56% support. Unfortunately for Sands, it disdains an online presence and OSB is far beyond its capabilities, leaving the Adelsons on the outside, looking in.

To further complicate matters, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has elected to offer very weak-tea support for sports betting. “I don’t have a problem with online sports betting,” he told one interviewer. To another he said he’s “open” to putting it before the electorate. (Whoa! Don’t sweep us off our feet, Greg.) His position on casino gambling could be charitably described as incoherent, however. In any event, Abbott continues to hide behind Texas’ true power broker, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R), who is as anti-gambling as the day is long. While OSB had the bare minimum of votes—101—needed to clear the lower house in the last Lege, it is destined to die in the state Senate as long as Patrick is setting the calendar. Ditto casinos.

Adelson (and Cuban) may have their sights set on Venetian Dallas. They’ve even got the underlying land. What they won’t have after the demoralizing Doncic trade is public sentiment—not to mention what little political clout they held. Dr. Adelson may be Lady Bountiful to the Texas GOP but it’s a codependent/abusive relationship. She gives them oodles of money and they repay her by backhanding her every Lege. That seems unlikely to change, although it may explain her resentful undercutting of the Mavericks. Texans know a carpetbagger when they see one and right now the Adelsons are probably about as welcome out there as a dose of the clap.

We like Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R, above). During the panic of Covid-19, he was one of the few politicians with the stones to stand tall for science while Luddites of all stripes were offering voodoo remedies and misanthropy. But he’s mistaken public policy for legislating morality lately. Specifically, having persuaded lawmakers in a previous session to double the state’s tax on sports betting revenues from 5% to 10%, he’s going back to the well. He wants to redouble it to a usurious 40%. DeWine has made no secret of his distaste for sports betting, so his move is pretty transparent.

As a stalking horse, DeWine is using the hapless Cleveland Browns, who covet a new stadium. (The Browns, having gone soft, now want to play in a dome.) Fortunately, DeWine’s screw-the-gamblers pitch landed like a lead balloon in the Lege. As state Rep. Brian Stewart (R) said, “I don’t think anything’s dead on arrival, but I do think that any time you’re talking about tax increases in the Republican Party, that’s going to get a skeptical eyebrow raise.” And if DeWine’s lost the GOP …

We have an unlikely but personal interest in the nomination of Howard Lutnick to be Secretary of Commerce. He’s the shady character who founded Cantor Gaming, a sleazy outfit that repeatedly displeased the Nevada Gaming Control Board, a tough group to rile up. Cantor had an interesting history, in that its maiden initiative in Nevada—introducing mobile, handheld gambling to casinos—had an immaculate conception in the Lege. A sponsor-less bill (written by Cantor) turned up in the hopper, made its way through both houses and was signed by Gov. Kenny Guinn (R) without much debate as to the desirability or need for new forms of gambling in the Silver State. Aside from MGM Resorts International then-spokesman Alan Feldman, few dared speak against it. (We know because we covered it for the Las Vegas Business Press at the time.)

Cantor made its bones by taking heavy sports betting action that more-legitimate books spurned. In order to so, it laid off wagers with an outlaw betting ring known as “the Jersey Boys.” That ran Cantor afoul of the Treasury Department, the IRS and eventually the Justice Department. One Cantor exec eventually pled out to a New York State felony in connection with the Jersey Boys caper. As the company’s troubles mounted, it was fined $5.5 million in Nevada and $30 million at the federal level. One Cantor lobbyist blames the proverbial “rogue employee.” Yeah, and Oswald acted alone.

The bottom line is that nobody with as many fleas on them as Lutnick should be a cabinet secretary, let alone run a gambling firm. But people with even-sketchier resumés are being confirmed even as this is typed. We’d be astonished if Lutnick doesn’t keep bedazzling normally intelligent people, right up to the top.

Fallen idol. Another liberal icon—or a wannabe one—has toppled. It seems that California Attorney General Rob Bonta couldn’t keep his hand out of the cookie jar. A Golden State investigation of scandal-plagued card room the Bicycle Club miraculously went away after Bonta received $16,200 in campaign contributions from it. (The feds were less clement, fining the Bicycle Club $500K for suspicious activities.)

Granted, a recent series of dismaying Supreme Court rulings has essentially legalized the bribery of politicians. We are not so complacent. Bonta may not have executed an explicit quid pro quo with a card room that was potentially laundering money from China. But it looks, walks and quacks for all the world like a duck. Bonta renounced his ambition to become the next California governor after the story broke. That’s not enough. Resignation seems the only honorable course. Californians deserve better.

There are many changes (to put it delicately) afoot in Washington, D.C. And they’re not going over well in Indian Country. One of the more civil disagreements involves newly confirmed Interior Secretary Doug Bergum. On the plus side, tribal/state relations were cordial while Bergum was governor of North Dakota, more than could be said of then-Gov. Kristi Noem (R), one state over. But Bergum is against—as are we—predecessor Deb Haaland‘s expansive interpretation of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act to extend throughout all of cyberspace. (SCOTUS concurred … or at least looked the other way.) Tribal-gaming leaders would rather that Haaland’s opinion prevailed, not Burgum’s, even if they like him personally.

Panelists at an Indian Gaming Association webinar were far from sanguine about other aspects of the new administration, describing the last two weeks as “chaos.” “We don’t know what’s coming down the pike,” opined publisher Victor Rocha, “We just know it’s going to be bad.” (If the White House keeps trying to reclassify Native Americans as illegal aliens, “bad” will be the understatement of the century.) Off-reservation casinos are now off-the-table ones and tribe-on-tribe disagreements, it is feared, will be encouraged if gambling is involved, as is presently the case in North Carolina.

Depressingly, one panelist suggested that tribes might enter into corrupt arrangements, if it facilitates off-rez casinos. “If an off-reservation investment involves a Trump hotel and his son’s involved, it might happen. They aren’t following the rule of law, but they’re following transactions,” asserted Indian Country Today Editor Mark Trahant.

We’ll give the final word to the admirable IGA Ernest Stevens Jr., “If folks are coming after us, they’re coming after America. Half of our 700,000 employees aren’t Indians … It’s not just about taking care of our elders and communities. We take care of a lot of folks who go beyond the reservation boundaries.”

Preach it, Ernie.