By the time you read this, most of the 2024 election will have been decided. It happened faster than expected and probably without another malfunction by that musty anachronism known as the Electoral College. There will be much furrowing of brows about What Happened and What Does It Mean—but not here. That’s above our pay grade. One national-level result worth mentioning that the elevation of Sen.-elect Jim Justice (R), outgoing governor of West Virginia, means that the Senate now counts a casino owner among its ranks. Beyond that …
Were we American Gaming Association prexy Bill Miller, we’d put away the victory speech and not take any celebratory laps. The outcome of the five gambling-related races on state and local ballots is troublingly ambiguous, taken overall. If the United States is indeed lurching to the right, a rising tide of intolerance appears to be inflicting some collateral damage on Big Gaming. The latter expected to run the table again, much as it had in previous elections. This time, not so much.
Take Amendment 5 in Missouri. This would have approved a riverboat casino for Lake of the Ozarks. Its campaign was well funded and faced no significant opposition. Quite the contrary. Yet, as of midnight on Nov. 6, it is losing 52% to 48%. There are lots of reasons why Amendment 5 was a poor idea, ranging from market saturation in the Show-Me State to the financial debility of sponsor Bally’s Corp. But those aren’t the sort of issues that resonate with the average voter. It was just one casino too many.
The numbers were kinder to Amendment 2, which (finally) legitimizes sports betting in Missouri. It’s passing 53% to 47%. What’s sobering here is that it had 50% support going into Election Day and yet the undecideds, of whom there were as many as a quarter of the electorate, broke massively against OSB. It makes one wonder what would have happened if Caesars Entertainment and other opponents hadn’t pulled their TV ads at the last minute. It certainly would have made things interesting.
Looking on the bright side, there was no good reason for Missouri not to have sports betting. Amendment 2 avoids unseemly compromises and it means sleazy state Sen. Denny Hoskins (R) can no longer singlehandedly block OSB. It also deals a collateral setback to the seamy, black-market slot industry in the state, which is additional cause for celebration.
Across the border in Arkansas, unequivocally bad things have happened. Amendment 2 is winning, 56% to 44%. This means Pope County loses the casino it might have had, were it not entangled for years in litigation. It did not help that Amendment 2 was (deliberately?) worded in such a tortured fashion that a “Yes” vote meant no casino and vice versa. Also, the amendment was ‘explained’ with 500 words of legalese that few voters were likely to read. All future Arkansas casinos will have to be voter-approved and the climb just got more difficult.
Perhaps the one clear-cut victory for Big Gaming came in Petersburg, where Virginia voters “overwhelmingly” (82% support) turned out in favor of a $1.8 billion project that will include a Cordish Gaming casino. After two bitterly contested elections in Richmond, both of which went against casinos, this a win the industry will surely savor … unless the Lege tries to bigfoot the outcome, which some disgraceful politicians have tried to do even before the plebiscite. Savor this win while you can, industry, because a northern-Virginia casino intended for Tysons Corner (which is likely to make next year’s ballot) faces stiff local opposition.
That left Colorado and vote that wasn’t really a win or a loss for the industry. Proposition JJ passed handily. It needed 50% support and got 76%. Currently, the Rocky Mountain State can keep only $29 million in OSB taxes. That cap has been lifted by voters. When it comes to getting a tax break from the electorate, Big Gaming is always going to come up short.
A special Better Lucky Than Smart Award goes to the scribes of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, who opted out of actual election coverage toward the end and lazily parroted the far-from-empirical betting markets instead. (Yes, those same markets that predicted a President Hillary Clinton with 88% certainty in 2016.) While the likes of Polymarket have come up right this year, it’s a piss-poor and indolent journalistic substitute for the on-the-ground reporting that the Nevada Independent and Nevada Current presented. That wasn’t always comforting but theirs was real journalism from which someone might learn bonafide facts, not suppositions based on social media “vibes.”
Indeed, the R-J‘s coverage presented the exquisite irony of Dr. Miriam Adelson‘s minions hanging their reputations on Internet betting sites of the sort against which the late Sheldon Adelson used to crusade. (CEO Rob Goldstein just pouted that Las Vegas Sands might take its ball and go home if New York State were to legalize iGaming.) Evidently iGaming is deplorable except when it conveniently isn’t. We’d love to hear the Adelson clan try to square this particular circle. Oh, how the little R-J monkeys dance when the Widow Adelson, Peter Thiel and Elon Musk are calling the tune. They know the sound of their masters’ voices and cut their capers accordingly.
Now that the senate, and most likely the house is now republican, and of course POTUS, maybe we get the jackpot trigger for a W2G up to $2,500 or $5,000. The only thing I do not like about it is that the casinos will reduce the number slot folks that pay the jackpots. I wish that a compromise could be set up so they do not lose their jobs.
With all of the important issues facing this country, raising the $1,200 jackpot trigger is a non-issue. Let our leaders work on the real issues.
You must have some (probably misplaced) confidence that the “leaders” of either party can do some good working on the real issues. I’d rather they fight each other and let things handle themselves. Presidents in particular get too much credit when something goes right, and too much blame when they go wrong.
You must have some (probably misplaced) confidence that the “leaders” of either party can do some good working on the real issues. I’d rather they fight each other and let things handle themselves. Presidents in particular get too much credit when something goes right, and too much blame when they go wrong.