Victor Rocha says it best: “Jack Abramoff is still the scum off the earth.” The unrepentant ripoff artist — to call him a snake in the grass would be a slander upon serpents — claims his only failing was to be just a teensy weensy bit overzealous. The problem, he brazenly asserts, wasn’t his conduct but the laws on the books. His Baron Munchausen-worthy assertion that he generated a 75X return on investment for the tribes he bilked reeks of what would politely be called “balderdash.” (S0 that’s why all those Abramoff-tainted tribal governments got drummed out of office! They were making too much money. Yeaaaahhhh, that’s the ticket.) Asking scumbag Abramoff to render judgment on Newt Gingrich is akin to having Lefty Rosenthal opine on the business practices of Donald Trump. By self-aggrandizingly likening himself to Gordon Gekko, Abramoff shows he’s still living in an egomaniacal fantasy land, with sycophantic ABC News talking heads dancing attendance upon him like panpipe-playing fauns.
Whoop-de-do. A nonbinding referendum is about as definitive as a letter of intent, long on symbolism and short on consequence. Citizens in Texas will get to weigh in on casino gambling next March. The way the question is worded (pledging casino revenues towards education) augurs well for the outcome: It’s how similar — albeit binding — ballot measures have succeeded in Missouri and other states. However, anything less than enormous landslide of “Ayes” appears unlikely to budge the Texas Lege, to say nothing of the absolutely immovable Gov. Rick Perry (R, pictured). Perry is only to happy to wave “bye bye” to Longhorn State dollars as they cross the border into Oklahoma and Louisiana … shades of the Pete Wilson era in California, when the state government would far sooner forfeit economic opportunity to Nevada than make a compact with one measly Native American tribe.
Finally! After some false starts and (arguably) a couple of wasted years, Massachusetts finally joined the casino fraternity yesterday. Gov. Deval Patrick (D) affixed his John Hancock to the enabling legislation, inspiring sighs of relief among slot manufacturers and moans of anxiety from neighboring states. Gary Loveman‘s favorite-son status and House Speaker Robert DeLeo‘s passionate advocacy of Suffolk Downs (above) makes Caesars Entertainment an overwhelming favorite in the steeplechase for the lone slot parlor. But with both Sheldon Adelson and Steve Wynn sounding wishy-washy of late, second-tier operators like Penn National Gaming and Ameristar Casinos have a chance to come up in the world whilst the big boys are second-guessing themselves. Heck, whoever thought they’d be the ones talking half-billion-dollar investments and Caesars would be taking the El Cheapo route?
For those of you wondering when the Chinese government is going to put the hammer down on runaway (in more senses than one) casino revenues in Macao, $11.5 billion in tax revenues provides your answer. For governmental purposes, public theft and drained savings accounts — ostensibly major worries of the Peking government — may be deemed a small price to pay for that kind of revenue stream.
