California: Child brides and gambling don’t mix

One of the weirdest gaming stories ever is playing out in California. Both Ted Kingston and Joseph Kingston, 95% owners of Lake Elsinore Casino, are tied to the Kingston Group, a polygamist sect that the Southern Poverty Law Center has also tagged as a hate group. With so many negative associations swirling around them, the Kingston brothers haven’t much of a chance for a casino license. It’s been proposed that ownership be flung to a cousin, Chad Benson, but is that enough distance? This dispute is so gnarled it has dragged on since 1991. Now Administrative Law Judge Theresa M. Brehl is applying some pressure, ordering the state to either accept her ruling in Benson’s favor within 70 days or write its own. Brehl obligingly overlooked a skein of accusations against the Kingston Group, including one from former Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, who said, “I strongly believe they are an organized crime family.”

Meanwhile, the Kingston brothers’ card room limps along from one temporary license to another. It hasn’t helped that a convicted felon held a key position, or that the card room was found to be in violation of the state’s Gambling Control Act. Even if the license is transferred to Benson, that is not the end of the saga, as he will have to start going through the same state-approval process that the Kingston boys failed. Mayor Steve Manos, a Kingston apologist, supports Brehl’s ruling, saying “the city would sorely miss the casino” if it were forced to close. It presently looks like that depends on whether Benson can pass the smell taste or Lake Elsinore Casino’s licensure will have to drag on for another 28 years.

* I’d think twice about playing cards at the unfortunate Lady Luck Casino in Gardena. Eleven people were injured (none seriously, thank Heaven) when the roof caved in, clearly disrupting many a session of blackjack.

* A pair of Arkansas gas stations were a little too eager to cash in on newly legal casino gambling in their state. Police swooped in and confiscated 31 black-market slot machines. The machines were of the ticket-out variety but the convenience stores in question will be getting a very different sort of ticket.

* Nevada sports books probably won’t lose sleep over the results from Year One of sports betting in New Jersey: $3.2 billion in handle. After all, Nevada books handled $5.2 billion in wagers during that same period. And nearby competitors, like Pennsylvania, are just getting start. Still, some preached optimism for the Garden State. “In all likelihood, New Jersey is just getting started. We project that the state will eventually generate some half a billion dollars [in revenue] annually from legal sports betting,” said Chris Grove, a managing director at Eilers & Krejcik Gaming. “A big chunk of Nevada’s sports betting market is generated by locals as opposed to tourists. It’s basically inevitable that you’ll see more sports betting revenue in New Jersey than in Nevada.”

A more obvious threat to the Silver State is California, with its vastly larger populace. However, that is assuming that card rooms and Native American tribes (who do not even agree with each other) can be gotten onto the same page. We like Nevada’s odds to remain #1.

* Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Some Florida pundits think that jai-alai could make a comeback, piggybacked onto casino gambling. (Wasn’t supposed to happen to horse racing, too?) The key element would be to enable patrons to wager on the games. At least it’s cheaper than racing horses or dogs. Still, I believe this when I see it.