Politics & gambling

Try to separate them. Just try. You can’t. They’re inextricably intertwined in a love-hate relationship. Or, as we like to say, you can take the casino out of politics but you can’t take politics out of the casino. Let’s look at some current events that illustrate this. Down in Mississippi, an attempt was made to juice a state-subsidized casino into Jackson, tiptoeing through the Lege when nobody was looking. Regulators were caught flat-footed, as were elements of the industry. The bill would have specified both the level of investment ($500 million, minimum) and the location (on the Pearl River). Also, it was a limited-bid scenario, with only owners currently operating in the state eligible.

Mind you, casino gambling is presently only in select cities along the Mississippi River and along the Gulf Coast. This is in keeping with that Religious Right double-standard that icky-poo gambling is suddenly hunky-dory if it takes place on (or near) water. A thrust into the heart of Jackson wasn’t what gambling opponents or the irate Mississippi Gaming & Hospitality Association were expecting.

Foundation Gaming Group figurehead Donn Mitchell made some trenchant points when he noted that only one developer could benefit from the stealthy bill and that it might be difficult to obtain capital for future projects if gambling laws in the state could shift at whim. Admittedly, Foundation Gaming is a bottom-feeder in the industry and wouldn’t be able to spring for that Jackson casino, but Mitchell isn’t wrong. And every casino developer in Mississippi (yes, even the late, unlamented Ralph Engelstad) built their 29 gambling houses fair and square, without subsidy. Many in the GOP caucus evidently felt the same as Mitchell, as the offending bill was quietly smothered in a closed-door meeting, like the legislative Rosemary’s Baby that it is.

Rep. Trey Lamar (R), father of this misshapen afterbirth, hinted that Big Gaming didn’t present a united front and that elements within it had approached him for special treatment. He also promised to bring his progeny back at the next session. “As encouragement to the people who had requested this bill and been willing to put their money where their mouth is, so to speak, and offered to invest literally somewhere pushing $1 billion in the city of Jackson—don’t give up hope,” Lamar crooned. We suggest you take him at his word.

A more successful sneak attack was pulled off in Kentucky, where the state Senate voted to disembowel the state’s regulatory apparatus and replace it with a new corporation. We’re suspicious of this move due to A) the need for secrecy and B) the evidence of the hooves of the horseracing industry all over the bill. What it would do is remove gambling from the remit of the Public Protection Cabinet, dissolving the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission and Department of Charitable Gaming. They would be supplanted with a Kentucky Horse Racing & Gaming Corp., starting in August of next year. The workforces of the two abolished departments would ostensibly be subsumed into the new corporation.

Color us skeptical of the public benefit from this. State Sen. Damon Thayer (R) claimed, despite his stealthiness, that “this would bring increased scrutiny, integrity and transparency to all legal forms of gaming in Kentucky.” Then again, he’s the darling of the horsey set. Thayer had previously tried to put horseracing regulation under the umbrella of the Department of Agriculture. He’s definitely got a burr under his saddle to move it somewhere, anywhere than where it is now. Could it be a reaction to the adverse scrutiny Churchill Downs received after a massive equine die-off following the last Kentucky Derby? Inquiring minds want to know.

Even though state Sen. Reggie Thomas (D) supported the bill, he frowned upon its method of passage. “The lack of transparency, the lack of sunshine, is something that should not be applauded,” he said. Will it fare differently in the lower chamber, now that it’s out in the open? Horse tracks may be onboard but charitable-gambling organizations so far are not. Also, when asked if he planned to be Kentucky’s new horseracing czar, Thayer (who is a lame duck) offered a non-denial denial, telling the media “such an appointment is not something he is considering at the moment.” (emphasis added) Thayer doubled down on his lack of candor by saying, “I hadn’t even thought about it. I’m quite certain I wouldn’t get an appointment by this governor.” Politics has made stranger bedfellows than that.

Although talk of sports betting drowns out nearly everything else in the gambling sphere these days, that’s not where the big online money is. No, that’d be in Internet casinos and one New Jersey solon is hip to that fact. State Sen. John McKeon (D) aims to double—more than double in the case of online sports wagering—the state’s base tax on revenue from both OSB and i-gambling. Having discovered that there’s money to be made, McKeon wants to scarf it up at a 30% clip. “The bill, identified as S3064, seemingly lacks an explanation for the proposed tax increase,” reported one news outlet.

Atlantic City‘s casinos have been poor-mouthing about how little they supposedly get from Internet casinos, so they may have to eat their own rhetoric. If the money they make online is so inconsiderable, why get het up about a tax increase? We think McKeon is playing dirty (and almost usurious) pool but we’d like to see Big Gaming come clean on the issue. Nor is the Garden State headed for the poorhouse, having booked over $1.3 billion in i-gaming/OSB taxes in the past decade. Then again, we’re not the ones having to scare up funds for UFC cage matches at Boardwalk Hall, are we?

Question of the Day: If Donald Trump gets the casino he wants for Trump Doral, will he sell the new Trump Bibles there? Don’t bet against it.

Quote of the Day: “The most common way athletes get around the leagues’ prohibitions on sports betting is to have friends place their bets.  Because regulators often closely watch the money placed with legal sports books, much of this action goes to illegal bookies.”—I. Nelson Rose on Shohei Ohtani‘s potential legal troubles. The Ohtani scandal now has grown ties to Las Vegas.