{"id":12240,"date":"2013-12-10T12:16:34","date_gmt":"2013-12-10T20:16:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=12240"},"modified":"2013-12-10T12:16:34","modified_gmt":"2013-12-10T20:16:34","slug":"ohio-half-full-or-half-empty-mgm-lauded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/ohio-half-full-or-half-empty-mgm-lauded\/","title":{"rendered":"Ohio: Half-full or half-empty?; MGM lauded"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whether Ohio<\/strong>‘s casinos are succeeding or disappointing depends on how the question is framed. Are they delivering what the state (and casino companies) promised or are they financial slackers? Penn National Gaming<\/strong>‘s Hollywood Casino Columbus<\/strong> is somewhat of both<\/a>, down 12% last month, yet delivering $17.5 million. But nearby\u00a0Scioto Downs Casino & Racetrack<\/strong> rose 14%, while Penn fell.<\/p>\n

\"ohio_plate_08\"<\/a>None of this comes as consolation to cities and governments that are having to pare their budgets even further, because gambling revenues aren’t living up to what both the industry and the state promised<\/a>. Big tax payments were part of the sales pitch for having casinos in Ohio. They were also supposed to soften the blow of draconian budget cuts made by Gov. John Kasich<\/strong> (R). But Kasich’s projections overshot the mark — nowhere near so badly as others’ but $90 million is still a lot of money. That squeezing sound is belts being tightened around the state.<\/p>\n

\"Kasich_John\"<\/a>A good thing that Kasich set his projections at ‘only’ $868 million. Spectrum Gaming Group<\/strong> forecast $1.1 billion in gross gaming revenue and the Ohio Department of Taxation<\/strong> went completely overboard (as in 100%-plus) when it predicted $1.9 billion. Still, cities a counties are having to chop a million here, $4 million there out of their budgets, and are finding themselves on the hook for obligations made on the assumption that casino money would be around to fund them. Horseshoe Cincinnati<\/strong> is exceeding expectations and Horseshoe Cleveland<\/strong> is only coming up modestly short (-12.5%). But the two Penn properties are well shy of their goals. Hollywood Toledo<\/strong> is 19% shy and Hollywood Columbus is 42% off the mark, by a conservative estimate. With two racinos already open and several more soon to do so, look for things to get worse, not better.<\/p>\n

Congratulations<\/strong> to MGM Resorts International<\/strong>. The casino giant received a perfect score in the Human Rights Campaign<\/strong>‘s Corporate Equality Index. The assessment “ranks major companies for their non-discrimination and benefits practices with respect to LGBT employees<\/em>,” reads the press release. “MGM Resorts became the first company in the gaming and hospitality industry to offer same-sex health benefits to employees in 2004. …\u00a0In addition to being a National Corporate Partner of the HRC, MGM Resorts has been an active supporter of The Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Southern Nevada<\/strong> since 2002<\/em>.” Well done. If other companies haven’t followed suit, they should.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whether Ohio‘s casinos are succeeding or disappointing depends on how the question is framed. Are they delivering what the state (and casino companies) promised or are they financial slackers? Penn National Gaming‘s Hollywood Casino Columbus is somewhat of both, down … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14,7,11,158,71,69,111,31],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12240"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12240"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12241,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12240\/revisions\/12241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}