“George” deal for Palmer; Resorts World in peril; Walker’s fan dance

Mohegan Sun ran out its host-community agreement with Palmer and it’s pretty clear that no expense will be spared to close the deal, either now or in a couple of months at the ballot box. The Mohegans are promising the Massachusetts town $3 million up front, $16.2 million per year and a performance-based bonus, more than doubling the local tax base. (Let casino opponents put that in their pipe and smoke it.) On a per capita basis, the Palmer deal is far richer than MGM Resorts International‘s one in Springfield. MGM would lavish $25 million on 150,000 burghers … but Mohegan Sun would divide its bounty among less than one-tenth that number of taxpayers, or roughly 1,200 clams per Palmerite. This accord is so jaw-droppingly generous that it’s difficult to imagine it failing with voters.

Quite foolishly, the State of New York — or rather, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) — got into the horseracing business. It’s a dying industry, leaking red ink in lieu of blood. Confronted with a $10 million loss, the New York Racing Association is considering closing Aqueduct Race Track. And if the track goes, Resorts World New York goes with it. The NYRA’s $54 million share of Resorts World dwindles to $12 million for operating expenses after purses and capex costs are taken out. One alternative to closing Aqueduct is to change state law to uncouple the VLT parlor from the track. “Because it’s state-owned they could do a carve out, a quick piece of legislation,” mulled former state senator John Sabini. (The Empire State legislature is being asked to do a lot of heavy lifting for the casino industry this year.) A third possibility would be to sell it, presumably to Genting Group, but the latter is keeping mum. A wise move.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker‘s campaign to quietly scuttle a Menominee tribal casino continues to gather allies. Already the owners of Potowatomi Bingo Casino are firmly opposed. Now the Ho-Chunk tribe has weighed in against their Menominee brothers, meaning the project is as good as dead. Columnist Ken Adams has taken note of Walker’s shilly-shallying on the matter. He observes that the Menominee project  “is located in Kenosha, not exactly New York City, but it has 100,000 citizens and is just a 45 minute drive from Chicago, or even better, a 20 minute ride from Chicago’s tony North shore suburbs.” He reaches the conclusion that Walker is indeed behaving in an anti-free market manner, letting existing casinos nix new competition. Since it just takes a stroke of the gubernatorial pen to settle this nettlesome issue, Walker just ought to issue a veto and be done with it, sparing us his gubernatorial fan dance.