… and it’s Pinnacle; The allure of slot routes

E23, the Albany-area casino proposal, has lifted the curtain on its managing partner and it’s Pinnacle Entertainment. Not to belittle the project but the presence of Pinnacle gives E23 real heft. Community organizer Marlon Anderson called it “a game changer for the city of Albany.” Pinnacle was selected from by developer David Flaum from among 10 supplicants for the project. Other than Genting Group, Pinnacle is the only heavyweight casino operator to commit to an upstate casino project and we submit that the Albany government not look this gift horse in the mouth.

Detroit players stayed home (or played in Ohio) last month, as Motown casino revenues slipped 7%. No surprise, Greektown Casino-Hotel had the worst of it, off 10%. MGM Grand Detroit slid 7% but remained comfortably at the head of the pack. Grossing $43 million to MGM’s $51 million, MotorCity Casino had the smallest decrease, 6%. The bamkrput city of Detroit itself is on pace to book $10 million less in gaming taxes this year, news it would rather not be hearing.

Fifty grand a year in tax money spoke louder than words in Lake Zurich, Illinois. Its board of trustees voted to allow two-dozen slot routes in  the town, with an aggregate of 120 machines. This overturns a longstanding ban on the devices. The slots must be sequestered from the rest of the establishment and can’t be advertised on the building. Lake Zurich could collect as much as $3,000 up front in licensing fees.

Reassured by the lack of crime increases in other villages with slot routes, the Lake Zurich board of trustees was persuaded to reverse its previous stance on the issue, even though it polled poorly among residents. To those in opposition, Trustee Jim Beaudoin responded, “It’s not just about the revenue. There are 100 different ways we could try to produce revenue. For me, it’s that we exist in a free-market system. The municipality shouldn’t really dictate what residents should and shouldn’t do.” So Lake Zurich joins the litany of communities nibbling at the ankles of the riverboat-casino industry by adding a few slots here, a few hundred there. That’s the free-market system, too.