States have, one after another, approved casino gambling to help prop up their own finances. Now, with crushing irony, Delaware is going from being subsidized by racinos to subsidizing them. Gov. Jack Markell (D) still can’t drum up the support for reducing the tax rate from a hefty 29% to a more-bearable 15%, but he’s getting a compromise package through the Legislature without much difficulty. “Senate lawmakers against the bill, while in the minority, were vocal, chiding the seemingly magical appearance of nearly $10 million during tough budget times to hand over to the casinos,” reported Jon Offredo.
Sen. Harris McDowell III (D) scoffed that “failing companies” were being rescued, but paying the state nearly one dollar in three doesn’t augur success. However, since Delaware’s three racinos still had $6 million unspent from last year’s bailout, you have to wonder how urgently they need the money, too. State Sen. Karen Peterson (D) got her dander up, noting that the owner of Delaware Park had opened a competing racino, Ocean Downs, in Maryland. “There’s a lot of hungry kids in Delaware that could have used that money,” she said of the Lege’s priorities. “There are a lot of elderly people in Delaware who can’t make ends meet.” Responded state Sen. Colin Bonini (R), “The bottom line is that these are three of our largest private-sector employers.” True that.
As expected, the Iowa Racing & Gaming Commission ruled that Penn National Gaming‘s Belle of Sioux City must close forthwith. Penn had been seeking at least a one-month reprieve, until the opening of Hard Hotel & Casino Sioux City. Now Penn’s putting all its chips on a court hearing today, asking for an emergency stay of the IRGC’s edict. That’s a glimmer of hope in an otherwise bleak prospect for casino employees.
It’s back to square one for six players who’d been suing Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa for $198,000 over the inclusion of bogus chips in the Borgata Winter Poker Open. As now has become the stuff of legend, the chips — with an ersatz value of $2.7 million — were flushed down a Harrah’s Resort toilet,* whence they proceeded to clog the pipes. A North Carolina man has been charged as the culprit.
(* — The alleged miscreant may have chosen to play at Borgata but preferred to stay at Harrah’s.)
Ruling that the beef falls within the purview of the Division of Gaming Enforcement, which had already ruled in Borgata’s favor, Atlantic County Superior Court Judge James Isman dismissed the six players’ complaint. This got their attorney, Maurice VerStandig, into a hot conniption fit. Likening the DGE to madmen, he said it’s “closely tied to the entities it regulates, and there’s a distinct concern that when you take the adversarial component out of the civil process, you risk the proverbial lunatics running the asylum. The DGE is not equipped to provide the sort of due process that is the hallmark of civil litigation in the state of New Jersey. There’s no jury box in the DGE, to the best of my knowledge.”
He then turned his wrath upon Borgata. “The Borgata has yet to come forward and explain,” VerStandig fulminated, “why it operated a poker tournament in such a shoddy and horrendous fashion. The Borgata botched a poker tournament to an epic degree and it hasn’t cost them so much as a penny.”
Tell it to the judge. Oh, that’s right. He did.
Update: Argosy was extended until July 10 at the hearing today.
Thank you!