{"id":14445,"date":"2014-08-29T10:29:02","date_gmt":"2014-08-29T18:29:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=14445"},"modified":"2014-08-29T10:29:02","modified_gmt":"2014-08-29T18:29:02","slug":"illinois-adding-insult-to-injury-sheldons-nuisance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/illinois-adding-insult-to-injury-sheldons-nuisance\/","title":{"rendered":"Illinois: Adding insult to injury; Sheldon’s nuisance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Casino-based slot machines in Illinois<\/strong> are now outnumbered by ones in convenience stores, bars and truck stops. To make the challenge even worse, the Legislature — which goes out of its way to kneecap the Land of Lincoln’s existing casinos — is contemplating doubling the amount<\/a>\u00a0of machines allowed in convenience locations.<\/p>\n

\"Slot\"<\/a>To some extent, the Illinois Casino Gaming Association<\/strong> is to blame, for having stood to one side when the initial enabling legislation went through, bringing truck-stop slots with it.\u00a0\u201cWe underestimated the kind of impact it was going to have.\u00a0We thought by putting a limit on the number of devices [five per site] it wouldn\u2019t hurt us much,\u201d says Executive Director Tom Swoik<\/strong>, a bit lamely.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Lege’s priorities, of course, were to raise taxes and to crack down on Illinois’ flourishing-but-illegal video poker industry. Distracted by the competitive threat of more casinos per se<\/em> and racinos, Swoik took his eye off the ball, a concession that is proving disastrous. Now you can go to the florist, pick up some flowers for the wife, and play the slots. Yes, you can even spin the reels at a scuba store. It sounds like an urban myth but it’s not.<\/p>\n

For their part, bar owners where struggling with increased liquor taxes and a ban on indoor smoking. Slots must have seemed like manna from Heaven<\/strong>. They’re also reported to have brought in a wider, AARP<\/strong>-friendly demographic … one that would surely be patronizing casinos if they were still the only game in town. Some form\u00a0of further expansion seems inevitable, so casinos will have to brace themselves for more pain.<\/p>\n

* Caught between out-of-state competition and impending smoking bans, West Virginia<\/strong>‘s casinos are looking for a way to claw back some of that money. The obvious solution? Internet<\/strong> gambling. As a trial balloon, the West Virginia Lottery<\/strong> is mulling online ticket sales<\/a>. Legislative sanction wouldn’t be needed to sell\u00a0Powerball<\/strong>, Mega Millions<\/strong> and Hot Lotto<\/strong> via smartphone. Technology is currently proving to be to the Lottery’s detriment.\u00a0\u201cPeople used to go in and pay for their gas, and now they\u2019re paying at the pump and not going in,\u201d\u00a0complained lottery supremo John Musgrave<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"sheldon-adelson_170x170\"<\/a>* Could Sheldon Adelson<\/strong>‘s beef with online gaming be motivated by trademark piracy and copyright infringement<\/a>? In June, it sued the owners of 35 Web sites and domain names for garlanding their sites with the Las Vegas Sands<\/strong> name and logo. “The intention was to be associated with the American company in order to lure prospective gamblers to overseas online casinos, and \u2018to unlawfully and in bad faith advertise, promote, and provide online casino services and gambling services\u2019,” reports Macau Business Daily<\/em>. Adelson isn’t the only Macao-centric operator facing this problem which has also hit<\/a> Galaxy Entertainment<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Casino-based slot machines in Illinois are now outnumbered by ones in convenience stores, bars and truck stops. To make the challenge even worse, the Legislature — which goes out of its way to kneecap the Land of Lincoln’s existing casinos … 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":[58,37,62,12,92,139],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14445"}],"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=14445"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14447,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14445\/revisions\/14447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}