Neil Bluhm isn’t waiting like some blushing wallflower for the Massachusetts Gaming Commission to approve him for a casino in Brockton. He’s spent $430,000 on Beacon 
Hill to make his $700 million casino project in reality. To put that in perspective, it makes Rush Street Gaming the third-highest-paying supplicant in the capital last year. Only Partners HealthCare and MassBio spent more on lobbyists. Although the MGC overwhelmingly rejected Bluhm and let the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe move forward, the latter’s troubles in Washington, D.C., may well cause the southeastern-Massachusetts casino issue to be revisited. Genting Group has already taken a $400 million bath on the Mashpee project. However, Bluhm had best go literally back to the drawing board. The MGC panned his design concept, which looks like a fire station. (A really expensive fire station, true.)
What of fears of cannibalization? Bluhm’s hirelings pooh-pooh them. According to the Boston Globe, “The pie would still grow, even as the incumbents get smaller pieces.” How much bigger? $270 million says Rush Street Gaming. And if that fails to persuade the MGC what’s the endgame? Well, the Lege will be weighing sports betting this session and, being such familiar faces to lawmakers, Bluhm’s lobbyists will be well-positioned to get Rush Street in on the ground floor.
* Unlimited casino ownership is one of the biggest and shiniest baubles on SB 552, a Christmas tree of gaming legislation currently working its way through committee in Indiana. Other ornaments include introducing sports wagering and moving a casino license to Terre Haute. However, no provision may be more controversial than the one 
that would eliminate Majestic Star I in favor of a $300 million ’boutique casino’ with 200 hotel rooms. It would double the number of jobs currently offered at Majestic Star. However, neither Horseshoe Hammond nor Ameristar East Chicago (both coming off a bad January) is taking the encroachment lying down. Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. said, “If they lose because of the new Gary casino, the only recourse they have is to lay people off.”
Even blunter was Hammond Fraternal Order of Police No. 51 President Michael Elkmann. “Gary has nothing but a history of scandal, corruption, misappropriation, moving money around, hiding money, stealing money,” he said. “We’ve got residents who are fearful to drive through the city of Gary because of the homicide rate, because of the crime rate. It’s a dangerous place to be. Nobody wants to go to Gary. Nobody wants to relocate their business to Gary. They’ve had their opportunity.” It sounds as though three decades of casinos have changed little in Gary.
* Sports betting continues to conquer statehouses. Rhode Island is up next, a bill to approve mobile wagering having flown out of committee, headed for the floor. It could be voted upon in the state Senate as soon as tomorrow. The governor has already budgeted $3 million in tax revenue from mobile sports wagering. Mobile wagering also has the backing of the Speaker of the House and the majority leader therein. According to the state lottery, which would administer the betting, it will take about six months to set in motion. Bread-and-butter sports betting is still finding its feet in the little state. $6.5 million was wagered on the Super Bowl and, because bets ran so heavily toward the New England Patriots, books took a loss of over $2 million. As one bookmaker put it, “we’re a victim of our success.”
Meanwhile in Iowa, four sports-betting bills are vying for supremacy in the Lege. According to The Associated Press, “Rep. Bobby Kaufmann drafted the bills to give the various gambling interests a chance to argue why they’d offer the best sports betting platform.” Those duking it out before lawmakers will be the lottery, casinos, a horse racing association and the professional sports leagues themselves. (Heaven forbid!) The lottery would police itself, while the other three interest groups would be overseen by the Iowa Racing & Gaming Commission.
* The Las Vegas High Roller must really be struggling. Caesars Entertainment is throwing in a pair of rides with every High Roller View (read: undesirable view) room booked at The Linq. In the meanwhile, those in search of a Valentine’s Day bargain on the Las Vegas Strip should book V-Day tickets for Love, Cirque du Soleil‘s Beatles show. We have our issues with the Cirque musical (such as depicting “Eleanor Rigby” as a parade of grotesques when it’s about people who go unseen in everyday life, hence its desperate poignancy) but at half price it’s definitely worth the trip.
* Meanwhile, New Jersey sports books are taking action on the Oscars. You can see the odds here. The picks are in line with S&G‘s except they show Roma nosing out Green Book for Best Picture, but we’re in agreement on Best Director and on all acting categories. Which reminds that last night we saw Glenn Close in The Wife and while I prefer Olivia Colman‘s performance in The Favourite, Close has the odds, a history of Oscar oversight and the law of averages in her favor, as it were. Predicts PlayUSA.com betting analyst Jessica Welman, “Oscars betting has been popular overseas for years, so it will be intriguing to see what the reaction here is. We suspect interest will be relatively high during a typically slow month for sportsbooks … Looking at the classic indicators of who will win Best Picture, the results are all over the map. While Roma may be the frontrunner, it is far from a guaranteed winner, which means one of these underdog winners could result in big payday for those who back them. Take Black Panther, for example. There is a scenario that the box office smash could win Best Picture. And with some books offering +2,500 odds, a small $10 bet could result in $250 profit.”
Black Panther? Heaven forbid. Give me BlacKkKlansman instead.
