Massachusetts: Hurry up and wait

That’s the message from the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, which has pushed its decision on the Everett and Revere casino proposals into August, to humor Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh. The MGC will hold a May 1 meeting on Walsh’s attempt to bigfoot the casino-award process. Sounding like a babysitting uncle tyrannized by a peevish toddler, MGC Chairman Stephen Crosby (left) said, “We’re bending over backward to give the city a very fair opportunity … and compromising a lot of other parties. I think it’s the right thing to do, but a big price is being paid by a lot of people to try and accommodate the city.”

In other words, if Walsh pitches a fit, everyone else should ‘bend over backward’ to humor him. The choice of an August deadline is presumably so that East Boston and Charlestown could hold referendums if Walsh gets his way. (He’s playing Russian roulette with mitigation dollars here but Crosby seems content to keep handing him bullets.) Walsh argues that because the casinos would be serviced by Boston’s airport, trains, buses and roads, tunnels, etc., makes Beantown a host community. If so, how many other surrounding communities in the state could use the same pretzel logic to argue for host-community status (say, West Springfield).  Meanwhile Wynn Resorts and Suffolk Downs get to twiddle their thumbs as they have to wait at least another two months to learn their fate.

Wait ’til next year. That’s the message from Florida, where state Sen. Garrett Richter (R) has surprisingly pulled his casino-expansion bill from consideration. His stated reason is that he doesn’t want to imperil any of the revenues the state receives from the Seminole Tribe. Negotiations over portions of the compact are supposedly going well (good on Gov. Rick Scott [R]) and Richter thinks widening private-sector gaming at this time will put the cart before the horse: “Sound policy must take into account the compact’s substantial revenue sharing and exclusivity provisions.” In any event, reconciling House and Senate versions of casino legislation would have been a fiendishly daunting task, and the hourglass is running fast. (Efforts to better regulate and possibly phase out dog racing are still in motion, however. ““The taxpayers of Florida are functionally subsidizing races that almost nobody is watching,” said state Sen. Don Gaetz [R]) Richter has said he wants to “significantly alter” the Seminole compact without making it clear how.

Besides, Florida still has been unable to rein in its Internet-casino industry. A six-county sweep by law enforcement officials targeted a number of establishments run by Peter Miller and Ivan Vega. ““It’s amazing for me that after all that has happened, we find ourselves here again,” marveled prosecutor Nicholas Cox. The Internet cafes operate a number of clever dodges. For instance, “customers would come in and pay a large sum of money for a piece of clothing like jeans or a hat and then apply the difference between what they paid and what the clothing was worth toward gambling.” Faced with that kind of ingenuity, the law is going to have its hands full coping with this amorphous industry.

VLT-based “instant racing” won’t be going to the voters in November, after coming within two votes of passage in the state senate. However, there’s still a good chance of another vote, especially if state Sen. Scott Lautenbaugh can make a couple of converts.