If casino gambling is outlawed in a November referendum, MGM Resorts International and Wynn Resorts want their money back. After all, they’ll be out the $85 million application fee and that’s just for starters. They’d also like to be reimbursed for slot machine fees ($600 per slot), a “gaming assessment fee,” a minimum Public Health Trust Fund fee, design and construction costs and sundry other levies.
Them’s a lot of nickels. Unfortunately, there is no legislative mechanism at present whereby they could get that money back. To that end, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission is urging the Legislature to put into law a refund of the $85 million, should casino gambling come to grief on the November ballot. MGM, for one, finds itself in limbo. The MGC is expected to vote on its application on June 13 but a Supreme Judicial Court ruling on the validity of the repeal provision (which the state holds to be an unconstitutional taking of property) won’t come until July 9, leaving MGM with a month to swing in the wind. Penn National Gaming, meanwhile, forges stoically ahead with Plainridge Park Casino as though nothing were amiss, hoping to open in little over a year.
Almost full or slightly empty? Gaming revenues rose 2% from 2012 to 2013, the fourth consecutive year of growth. “Revenue growth has largely been attributed to market expansion; as states continue to legalize gaming and more tribes enter the gaming industry,” reports Casino Journal. However, it’s not straightforward growth. In an ever-larger tribal market, “existing operators have seen declining revenues from the increased competition.”
In the commercial-casino sphere, new gambling in Ohio (+149%) and expansion in Maryland (+98%) took their toll on Pennsylvania (-1.5%) and Delaware (-17%). National Gaming Services number-cruncher Daniel Holmes says the industry is at a nodal point: “The target market for the traditional brick-and-mortar casino floors is aging, so now is a critical time for casino operators to identify ways to make their facilities more attractive as local entertainment destinations for the younger generations.” Growth in Massachusetts and New York, it was warned, would come at the expense of other markets.
* –Japan‘s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, was in Singapore yesterday, partly to kick the tires on the city-state’s megaresorts, Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa. The experience certainly ought to raise his expectations for the quality of product his government will demand if it legalizes casinos.
