Author: David Mckee

Gambling continues to prosper in Missouri, where August receipts ($161 million) were 5.5% above last year’s. Visitation was actually down 5% but per-player spending rose 11%, inflation be damned. Ameristar St. Charles was out front with $26.5 million, leaping 9%. River City was next at $21 million, up 8%, while Penn Entertainment‘s nearby sister property Hollywood St. Louis jumped 10% to $19 million. Freshly rebranded Horseshoe St. Louis showed signs of a turnaround, up 6% to $14 million. Over in Kansas City, there’s a continued tailwind behind reinvented Bally’s Kansas City, up 9% to $10 million, even if it was in fourth place. Market leaders were Ameristar Kansas City ($16.5 million, +1%), Harrah’s North Kansas City ($15 million, +14%) and Argosy Riverside ($15 million, flat). Outstate, Century Casinos had adverse months in Caruthersville ($3.5 million, -9%) and Cape Girardeau ($5.5 million, -7%), while Isle of Capri Boonville climbed 5% to $7.5 million.

Clark County Administrator Robert Telles (D) is in custody for the murder of Las Vegas Review-Journal investigative reporter Jeff German in what has all the appearance of a revenge killing. Good work by Las Vegas Metro, despite a set of conflicting statements that the German assassination was “an isolated incident” and the act of someone casing the neighborhood for crimes of opportunity. (Like killing crusading reporters, we guess.) The alleged perp was stupid enough to drive to and from the crime scene in a GMC Yukon Denali tricked out with chrome handles and a sunroof, not your average perp. Ditto the strange disguise affected, which had Metro briefly baffled as to whether the suspect was a he or a she. Perhaps the sight of Telles washing town the Denali hours after the crime was what did him in. (Or maybe it was wearing a white hazmat suit to clean his garage. Nothing strange about that, eh?)

Just prior to being apprehended by Metro, Telles sustained what is described as a self-inflicted wound (mens rea?) and was carried from his SWAT-breached home on a stretcher. A Denali matching crime-scene footage was towed from his driveway. The timing of the crime was opportune and incriminating: According to the Los Angeles Times, “German was working on a new story about Telles the week he was stabbed to death.” Previously, German had covered Telles for “allegations of bullying, favoritism and an inappropriate relationship between Telles and a subordinate. Telles had publicly accused German of being a ‘bully’ and running a ‘smear’ campaign against him,” in the great tradition of Nevada elected officials. (Telles remains in office until December 31.)

In case you missed it, crusading, veteran investigative journalist Jeff German was murdered near his home on Friday. He was stabbed to death following an “altercation” with someone as yet unknown. The up-close-and-personal manner of the crime puts the mind to work and the Las Vegas Review-Journal has published a litany of potential suspects, people and agencies who betrayed the public trust and—in some cases—lost their jobs because of German’s work. I never knew the man. I doubt I ever even spoke to him on the phone. But he was the best at what he did. An attack on German is an attack on everybody who covers Southern Nevada and a message has been sent: Don’t mess with The Man. At least Las Vegas Metro is on the case and the R-J continues to ask questions. Metro says it has a suspect. I hope it’s not some patsy, a convenient meth head thought to have been rummaging through German’s garbage—though it may well have been someone with dirty laundry all right. As R-J Editor Glenn Cook said, “I’m relieved that police have identified a suspect, and I hope an arrest can answer the question we are all asking right now: Why would someone kill Jeff?” I can think of a few reasons.

“There is no evidence to suggest that casinos could not meet their PILOT obligations.” With those words Judge Michael Blee tossed New Jersey‘s current Payment In Lieu Of Taxes (PILOT) special-status tax program for casinos, which has lost round after round in the courts. The PILOT quasi-subsidy assesses each Atlantic City casino a share of its gross gaming revenue rather than levy property taxes. This has been the rule since 2016 but last year, in an overreach sped through the Lege by Gov. Phil Murphy (D), online gambling revenues are excluded from the PILOT assessment. This was done at the behest of alarmist casino owners, who said they needed the financial relief to get past the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. Judge Bee found these grounds, in a word, dubious. They resulted in a $55 million shortfall that disproportionately affected Atlantic City proper.

We wouldn’t have believed it but it appears that both California sports-betting ballot initiatives could go down to defeat in November. While we favor sports betting, on principle, we don’t have a dog in this fight. Both Proposition 26 (tribal) and Proposition 27 (Big Gaming) have their merits and drawbacks. Thus you’ll not see us endorse either one prior to Election Day. Promise. The gloomy prospect of a double-barreled defeat comes from Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, a source that should be taken seriously. “The political power and deep pockets of interests with dogs in this hunt … together with competing sports betting measures whose back-to-back presentation on the ballot is likely to confuse voters have us leaning negative on California’s sports betting legalization prospects this fall,” they forecast.