Florida: Phhhhht …; Crackdown in Macao; Scandal at Parx

That hissing sound you hear is the air going out of DraftKings‘ and FanDuel‘s electoral balloon. Florida Education Champions, their front group for bringing online sports betting to the Sunshine State, folded its hand, conceding that it can’t get enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot. It says it’s “reassessing long-term options, still hoping one day to get voter approval for legal online sports gambling in Florida.” FEC says it collected over a million signatures, but only 471,536 could be verified. “While pursuing our mission to add sports betting to the ballot, we ran into some serious challenges, but most of all, the COVID-19 surge decimated our operations and ability to collect in-person signatures,” FEC complained, failing to add that the dog ate its homework. All gambling-related signature drives, had they made the ballot, might have faced serious voter backlash, given the in-your-face petitioning tactics alleged, which included encroachment upon private property.

Political columnist Scott Powers gloomily opined that “the end of Florida Education Champions’ effort means that legal, online sports betting may be unlikely to be available in Florida for years, if ever.” That’s $36 million down the drain. Chalk it up as a ‘marketing expense.’ Meanwhile, Las Vegas Sands—under the guise of Florida Voters in Charge—is persisting against heavy odds to qualify its $45 million casino-expansion initiative. It needs to get to 941,000 verifiable signatures by tomorrow. It has 723,494. Also, the speed of verification will have to also double. The state can validate (or invalidate) 27,000 signatures per day but Sands needs them to do it at a 43K-a-day clip.

Florida Voters in Charge still has the small matter of credible allegations of election fraud to deal with. Although these charges are coming from election officials in six counties, Sands surrogates wail that “in many instances … careless allegations” are being made by gambling opponents. Thus FVIC hopes to explain away instances of dead peoples’ names showing up on petitions, to say nothing of those of individuals who knew full well that they hadn’t signed. Or how about this gem: “In Walton County, Supervisor of Elections Bobby Beasley identified as likely falsified a petition supposedly signed by a woman he knows to be an Alzheimer’s patient living in a nursing home.” Sands seems to have hired some pretty unscrupulous people to beat the bushes for signatures and it has to wear the badge of dishonor.

The PAC argues in its defense that it “has to pay the elections supervisors to verify every petition form that is turned in, and invalid petitions create additional work and slow down the counting of valid petitions.” Maybe FVIC should have thought about that sooner. Still, there’s an outside chance that Sands could just barely make it onto the ballot, at which point it’s a whole new ballgame—although perhaps not for the signature-collectors who committed fraud and ought to face prosecution. Some have already been given the sack. “FVIC and its contractors have terminated thousands of petition gatherers who have not met the quality control standards of FVIC and its contractors, and will continue to do everything in its power to ensure full compliance with Florida law while working to give Florida voters a choice in the 2022 election,” said attorney Jim McKee (no relation).

Then again, McKee damaged his own credibility by claiming that the symbiotic relationship between Sands and FVIC was the purely product of “recent media reports” and that Sands was merely “a donor to our committee and supportive of our stated end goal.” To put that into context, FVIC has received $51,564,100, of which $49,564,000 was given by—you guessed it—Las Vegas Sands. Huffed McKee, “Any assertion [of Sands’ involvement] to the contrary is absurd and is made for improper reasons.” Yeah, tell us another one, Jim. He who pays the piper calls the tune. Dance, McKee, dance.

Some gaming analysts have been pooh-poohing the larger significance of the arrest of Chinese junket boss Alvin Chau. But the other shoe dropped over the weekend, when Macau Legend founder Chan Weng Lin was clapped in irons, the 15th such bust for illegal gambling activities. Clearly Peking has it in for the junket business, which acts as intermediary between VIP casinos and high-rollers, and upon whom the casinos are heavily reliant to the tune of $3.5 billion a year. The endgame may be the complete extirpation of junkets (and their extension of credit in Macao). Writes gaming-law expert I. Nelson Rose, “Beijing has always disliked junkets, which help wealthy Mainlanders take money, often illegally, to Macau to be lost at casinos owned by Westerners.” He places the anti-junket crackdown within the wider context of authorities trying to turn Macao into a playground for the middle class, otherwise known as ‘premium mass players.’

In new gaming laws proposed in Macao (and certain to be rubber-stamped by the city’s legislature), Bloomberg reports, “one junket can work with only one gaming operator and charge a commission for its services.” No more revenue sharing. Absolutely. No more junkets? Maybe. It will be hard for junket operators to make their nut on a commission-only basis. The clear message coming from the central government these days is: casinos yes, junkets, no.

Parx Racing has a scandal it could do very well without. Jockey Mychel Sanchez was found to have bet on himself to lose in at least one race. He received a creampuff penalty: 60 days’ suspension in Pennsylvania and Maryland. Sanchez apparently didn’t need the money, so successful was he aboard the ponies. But the discovery of his TVG wagering account (by TVG itself) raises all manner of red flags. Sanchez may find himself banned from Monmouth Park in New Jersey, which is some consolation but … how many other jockeys are doing the same thing? It’s not illegal but it certainly tarnishes the image of the Sport of Kings. As Dave Bontempo writes, “Public trust is the emotional currency of any sport. It also the currency of horse racing. If the gamblers goes, the sport ceases.”

To end on a positive note, Lady Gaga has extended her acclaimed Jazz & Piano show at Park MGM through May 1. We’d (almost) sell our souls to see it. There will be a staggered set of pre-sales starting tomorrow through Feb. 3. “Little Monsters” get first dibs, then Citi/AAdvantage card members, then MGM Rewards members on Feb. 3. (Nice, you get your rewards membership on the 1st but have to wait at the back of the Lady Gaga queue.) Let us take this occasion to hope that continued Las Vegas Strip success makes up for Her Ladyship getting almost certainly screwed out of an Academy Award for her take-no-prisoners performance in House of Gucci. We also thank Mother Monster for a Vegas run that has been devoid of the diva drama of the sort currently playing out at Caesars Palace, courtesy of You Know Who.