{"id":14644,"date":"2014-09-26T10:03:42","date_gmt":"2014-09-26T18:03:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=14644"},"modified":"2014-09-26T13:13:36","modified_gmt":"2014-09-26T21:13:36","slug":"usa-today-those-evil-casinos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/usa-today-those-evil-casinos\/","title":{"rendered":"USA Today: Those evil casinos!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Carrie<\/a>With the gaming industry temporarily exhausted from over-expansion and saturation, USA Today<\/em> has chosen this moment to pounce with an anti-gambling editorial<\/a>. The graybeards on the USA Today<\/em> editorial board clearly haven’t been paying close attention — racinos in Delaware<\/strong>, for instance, are hardly a ‘recent’ phenomenon.\u00a0And they do make a couple of good points, such as: “The farther gambling spreads, the less likely it is to produce the gusher of revenue that entices states to approve it in the first place.”<\/p>\n

However, the paper’s solution would do Carrie Nation<\/strong> proud. “Ultimately, states with gambling will be primarily be extracting money from their own residents. At best, this is a wash for the local economy. While gamblers do spend money and create jobs, they would likely spend it in other ways that sustained other jobs if casinos were unavailable.”<\/p>\n

In other words, get rid of gambling. If the point weren’t clear enough, USA Today<\/em> recommends tax increases and spending cuts in lieu of casinos … not exactly the most humane solution.<\/p>\n

American Gaming Association<\/strong> President Geoff Freeman<\/strong> was quick to counterattack<\/a>, arguing that “policymakers should view gaming as one piece of a multifaceted economic development strategy.” He pointed to the $150 million a year tax windfall that Neil Bluhm<\/strong>‘s Rivers Casino<\/strong> has been for Pittsburgh<\/strong> and to the business-meeting Mecca that is Las Vegas<\/strong> (also noting Downtown’s reinvention as a high-tech corridor).<\/p>\n

Freeman wanders off the path when he calls for deregulation of the industry as the panacea that will provide more gaming jobs. (Please explain, Geoff, why this is Problem #1.) However, he recovers and concludes with, “We are a highly competitive business uniquely capable of creating thousands of local jobs, supporting small businesses and partnering with communities.”<\/p>\n

I’d agree with that.<\/p>\n

* Since August began and ended on a weekend, there’s probably some as-yet-\"dice\"<\/a>unreported slot revenue lurking in the Nevada Gaming Control Board<\/strong>‘s revenue count for Nevada<\/strong>. That being said, the Silver State was down 4% and the Strip was -6%. The house got its clock cleaned at baccarat, as casinos won -14%. (In fairness, it would be difficult to beat last year’s 55.5% increase and 19% hold.) Overall, J.P. Morgan<\/strong> analyst Joseph Greff<\/strong> observes “a significant improvement from where trends stood following the first two months of the year.”<\/p>\n

Despite a 6% increase in coin-in, Strip slot revenue was but 1% more and\u00a0a slippage in table play helped non-baccarat table games to decline 4%. Locals casino play was weak for the second August in a row, falling 4%.<\/p>\n

The Strip falloff wasn’t as bad as Deutsche Bank<\/strong> analyst Carlo Santarelli<\/strong> was expecting (he thought it would be -13%). Santarelli reckons that Boyd Gaming<\/strong> was 5% down for the month, although Downtown was up 4%, offset by a matching decline on the Boulder Strip<\/strong>. North Las Vegas<\/strong> saw a 7% increase, while the rest of Clark County<\/strong> was down 5% and Laughlin<\/strong> was off by 7%. Lake Tahoe<\/strong> had an extremely good month, up 33%, while Reno<\/strong> was 2% off last year’s pace but still had a healthy, $53 million gross.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the gaming industry temporarily exhausted from over-expansion and saturation, USA Today has chosen this moment to pounce with an anti-gambling editorial. The graybeards on the USA Today editorial board clearly haven’t been paying close attention — racinos in Delaware, … 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":[88,60,133,164,51,14,174,76,49,91,78,95,79,9,19,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14644"}],"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=14644"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14649,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14644\/revisions\/14649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}