Why didn’t social distancing in casinos work? Reports Frank Legato, “the Centers for Disease Control revealed that the Covid-19 virus can survive up to two or three days on stainless steel, plastic and other nonporous 
surfaces—like gaming machines. An industry shutdown was unavoidable.” While that may have deterred the traditional casino industry, black-market slot routes in Pennsylvania, Missouri and other states are carrying on business as usual. Pandemic? What pandemic? There’s money to be made, public health be damned! According to Legato, “One photo shows a man playing a slot-like device with his daughter, a toddler, in his lap, wearing pajamas.”
Attempts have been made in Pennsylvania to push back against this, but law enforcement currently has its hands full. Illinois Senate President Pro Tem Dave Schatz seemed resigned to the situation, telling a newspaper, “I don’t expect them to just voluntarily shut off. They’re willing to break the law as it is.” Or, as Pennsylvanians Against Illegal Gambling spokesman Peter Shelly told Legato, “There’s no supervision, no regulation. If they were a licensed, legitimate, regulated, supervised casino, they’d be shut down. At some point, there’s going to have to be more enforcement. They’re going have to get these machines taken out, period. These folks aren’t going to regulate themselves.” No, and somebody had better.
* Meanwhile, the U.S. economy staggers under 6.7 million unemployment claims, doubling in a week and sparking fears of a second Great Depression. MIT Sloan School of Management professor Thomas Kochan warned, “The increases are sobering and staggering but the worst is yet to come.” For example, what happens if the casinos don’t open in a month, as retainers and benefits for employees expire? “Some 294 million people in at least 37 states, 74 counties, 14 cities, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico have been told to stay home,” reports the Boston Globe. And when gig workers and the self-employed apply for unemployment benefits under the CARES Act, “the total numbers will be even more mind boggling,” says University of Massachusetts Amherst economist Arindrajit Dube.
Each jobless projection is more alarming than the last. Federal Reserve Bank of Boston CEO Eric Rosengren “expects a jobless rate of at least 10 percent in the April-June quarter.” Goldman Sachs boffins think the rate will hit 15% by midsummer. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard foresees 30% unemployment this quarter alone. Not a wild-eyed radical in the bunch. And the more dependent you are on tourism, the harder the hit will be (take note, Nevada and Atlantic City). Unless people feel like gambling their lives in addition to their money—of which they will have less—it’s going to be a long road back for Big Gaming.
* McCarran International Airport will soon be a shell of its former self. B Concourse and level two of E Concourse are being completely closed, while the C Annex security checkpoint is being shut down. Terminal 3 continues to offer “limited service” through the D Concourse. “By reducing the operational areas of the airport, McCarran’s custodial team will be able to prioritize sanitation and increase the frequency of cleaning while conserving valuable resources and supplies. This also allows McCarran to do its part to flatten the curve and practice social distancing in order to slow the spread of coronavirus by reducing the number of employees required to be physically present in their respective workspaces,” spokesman Joe Rajchel explains.
* Caesars Entertainment got thwacked extra hard by British regulators. It has been fined $16 million—the biggest gaming penalty in United Kingdom history—for allowing two known-to-be-disordered gamblers to lose $681,500. Three senior managers have been given the sack and forced to surrender their personal gaming licenses. Needless to say, this is a very black mark on the Roman Empire.
