Arrogance is usually the corollary of idiocy. And Santa Anita racetrack was surely arrogant in thinking it could put one over on the state of California … or on the ever-vigilant Native American tribes in the Golden State. Without getting approval or indeed, it seems, without telling anyone, Santa Anita installed 24 ‘historical horse racing machines’ (HRMs for short) at the track. Two days later, they were gone, somebody having put Attorney General Rob Bonta onto this cutesy ploy.
We’ve long maintained that HRMs are slots in drag and California appears to share our skepticism of them. You bet on already-run races, wagering against other players. Yes, it’s parimutuel betting. It’s also a clever way to get around state bans on slot machines, which is why you’ll find HRMs all over Kentucky, as well chock-a-block in much of Virginia. Since it’s not a house game, the HRM enjoys a clever legal status. And if Kentucky, which is already a hairsbreadth away from casino gambling, ever legalizes slots, watch those HRMs disappear fast.
In the case of Santa Anita, somebody obviously thought HRMs were a quickie Indian Gaming Regulatory Act workaround. Unfortunately for the track, what IGRA says (in essence) is that if the tribes don’t have it, neither can you. Since California’s gaming-enabled tribes don’t have HRMs, they took a dim of view of Santa Anita and blew the whistle on this IGRA end-run.
“California racing is struggling. I don’t think that’s a secret,” admitted track owner Stronach Group. “We’ve got to come up with some additional ideas and additional revenue streams. This is a product we’ve spent a lot of time designing to be compliant with California law.” In other words, they’re desperate. As for “a lot of time” spent “designing” the product, we think that’s more likely the province of the game manufacturer(s) than Santa Anita. The HRMs confiscated sound just like the ones you’d find at a Rosie’s slot parlor in the Cavalier State.
In case you think the tracks are being put-upon by The Man, we remind you that IGRA was co-authored by Sen. John McCain (R) and signed into law by that notorious bleeding-heart liberal Ronald Reagan. The key phrase in Stronach’s apologia is “compliant with California law” and it’s a matter 99.9% certain to be settled in court, well down the road. There may be a fine line whereby these devices are indeed legal in the Golden State. But the state’s Department of Justice is to be commended for cracking down on this secretive maneuver before it exploded into a full-blown-jailbreak.
Sheiks of Araby. The move by Wynn Resorts into the United Arab Emirates is bound to be controversial. It’s also certain to be incredibly lucrative, as a second Singapore bids fair to spring from the shores of the Persian Gulf. Could complying with Emirati law (which is an authoritarian’s wet dream) bring reputational harm on Wynn? Could the casino company be a force for good in the region? Could the answer to both those questions be “Yes”? Spoiler alert: It could.
This week, Casino Reports details the tightrope that Wynn is walking in the Gulf and the remarkable payday that seems to be just around the corner. Others aren’t even waiting for Wynn Al Marjan (above) to open to try and get into the tent. MGM Resorts International wants to be next and we wouldn’t put it past the Adelson clan to discover a newfound love for Islam if it gets them a megaresort awash in petrodollars. Venetian Dubai? Don’t bet against it.
Speaking of Casino Reports, this week Richard Schuetz profiles Scott Roeben. We occasionally butt heads with Roeben but, far more often than not, value his candor. He’s one of the fewer and fewer voices speaking truth to power in Las Vegas. You certainly won’t read such clear-eyed coverage of ongoing debacles like Formula One or Joe Lombardo‘s baseball folly or Bally’s Las Vegas in the whimpering, housebroken Las Vegas Review-Journal or the fanzine Nevada Independent. Other than the Nevada Current, Roeben is the best B.S. detector in Sin City.
If you need a laugh, here’s something. The benighted author obviously knows nothing about the cramped conditions, minimal amenities and safety hazards for which riverboat casinos are known. They’ve been on the way out ever since Hurricane Katrina, 20 years ago, and we’d bet our bottom dollar that they’re not coming back, misplaced romanticism notwithstanding. The casino industry has evolved past riverboats, thank Heaven, and only hardcore nostalgia addicts miss them.
Finally … if you want a font of bad ideas there’s no better person to ask than Cal Thomas. The old sourpuss has seized upon the NCAA basketball scandal to call for “control” of gambling in the U.S. It sounds sinister and probably is. Cal openly pines for “a time in America when laws against gambling were believed necessary because of the potential harm it caused by corrupting the sport and causing some people to risk more than they could afford to lose.” Yes, he’s nostalgic for prohibition of the pastime, ascribing the near-nationwide legality of sports betting to profit motives. That would come as a rude surprise to SCOTUS.
Thomas fears that, now that sports betting is legal, lawful prostitution is next. First, that’s quite a leap of logic and, second, maybe it’s a debate we ought to be having. Sports books “seem to target Black gamblers,” gasps Cal, if that’s a priori evidence of wrongdoing. (Never mind that it’s pure bullshit.) Perhaps the paternalistic Thomas thinks African Americans can’t control their gambling jones, unlike himself. With incontinent reasoning, Thomas wanders into a rant about NIL rules for college sports. Perhaps it has something to do with his admittedly “brief” basketball career. Could Gramps be having sour grapes about student athletes succeeding where he failed? Who knows.
Then again, Thomas is so far out to lunch that he missed the recent attempt to whitewash Pete Rose and smuggle him into the Cooperstown. (Cal mistakenly holds up MLB as a paragon of rectitude.) In his mental miasma, Thomas ends by vaguely demanding that sports wagering be “controlled” in some vaguely unspecified manner, citing the ban on cigarette advertising and the restrictions on liquor marketing—as though it had ever been legal to sell alcohol to minors. Somebody carry Grandpa Thomas back to the old folks’ home before he hurts himself.