Fertitta shut out; Gaming blogger shut down

A provision in New Jersey‘s sports-betting law is good news for MGM Resorts International and Caesars Entertainment, and bad news for Tilman Fertitta. The law bars owners of major-league teams from also offering sports betting. But a loophole exempts owners who have a less-than-10% stake in casino company. So Joshua Harris, owner of the Philadelphia 76ers and the New Jersey Devils, gets through because his Apollo (Mis)Management holds only a small stake in Caesars. Another loophole exempts teams that generate less than 1% of a company’s revenue, which clears the path for MGM, owner of the WNBA‘s Las Vegas Aces. But if Fertitta wants to offer sports betting at the Golden Nugget, he’ll have to sell the Houston Rockets within a year, leaving him to decide which is the more desirable revenue stream. (We predict he’ll pick the NBA over a sports book.)

New Jersey state Senate President Stephen Sweeney said the law was designed to stop casino owners from “controlling both ends of the bet … That’s something we’re just not comfortable with.” That’s laudable but it doesn’t paper over the loopholes Sweeney permitted. Atlantic City casinos who do participate in sports betting will pay 8.5% in tax to the state and 1.25% to a fund to help Atlantic City. Race tracks will pay the 1.25% to their host communities. Meanwhile, one columnist opines that sports books are so yesterday and mobile wagering is the way to go.

* In more bad news for Illinois casinos, unincorporated Clark County is now open to slot routes. “This is an opportunity for us to bring in revenue from people who want to pay the revenue, not by forcing something on somebody,” rationalized county Commissioner Tim Schneider (R). The slots are expected to generate at least $260,000 over the balance of the year. Each slot route must have a liquor license to get the maximum of five VLTs and, with 60 liquor licensees in unincorporated Cook, we’re looking at 300 more slots in the market. That’s on top of 90 municipalities in the county that approved slot routes, a veritable stampede of slots. There was scattered opposition from churches and gambling proponents but the measure passed 9-1, with three commissioners diving under the table by voting “present.”

* As long as we’re the bearer of bad news, we might as well tell you that Brian Christopher‘s gambling-focused YouTube channel was removed by corporate monitors, wiping out 1,100-plus videos of him playing slots and 80,000 subscriptions. The crackdown seems to be part of a systematic process by YouTube to erase gambling-related content. In a nonsensical explanation, YouTube said Christopher had violated rules against “violent or dangerous acts that have an inherent risk of serious physical harm or death.” We can’t recall the last time we heard about somebody being killed or maimed by a slot machine, have you? On the contrary, Christopher seems right in line with YouTube’s promotion of content that is “educational or documentary in nature.”

Nor is it as though Christopher were a video rogue. He gets approval from the manufacturers of the slots he films and from the casinos in which he films them. “If a YouTube Trusted Flagger can’t distinguish whether there has been a violation based on the public information they give out, I cannot see how they could expect most users to do so either,” said one volunteer monitor. Although YouTube eventually relented and reinstated Christopher’s channel, he wasn’t entirely mollified. “YouTube doing this stuff absolutely jeopardizes my business relationships. I’m in contact with the casinos I was supposed to visit, I’m trying to put them at ease and continue on Facebook. I know I haven’t lost my brand … but it’s tough,” he told The Atlantic.

As Swedish blogger Kim Hultman said, “This is my full-time job. You spend so many years to build it up and they can just erase it with one button.” Or, as Christopher puts it, “I made them a ton of money over the past few years. For them to just close up shop with zero way of communication is a slap in the face.”