{"id":26296,"date":"2020-03-06T11:42:50","date_gmt":"2020-03-06T19:42:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=26296"},"modified":"2020-10-16T07:09:27","modified_gmt":"2020-10-16T15:09:27","slug":"stitt-plays-games-georgia-weighs-sports-betting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/stitt-plays-games-georgia-weighs-sports-betting\/","title":{"rendered":"Stitt plays games; Georgia weighs sports betting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ignoring a court order, voluble\u00a0Oklahoma<\/strong> Gov. Kevin Stitt<\/strong> (R) decided to negotiate through the media again. Instead of dickering with \"\"the Sooner State’s tribes over revenue sharing (which he’s supposed to be doing), Stitt threatened to bring private casinos into the state. “Let me bring commercial casinos in, give out just four commercial licenses, and it would be $350 million to the state,” Stitt bragged. \u201cI think there\u2019s a win-win. There\u2019s a win for the casino industry, there\u2019s a win for the tribes, and there\u2019s a win for the state of Oklahoma and education.\u201d While the tribes aren’t averse to a fee increase, Stitt wants to hike it to at least 25% of gross gaming revenue (as high as Connecticut<\/strong>‘s, which exempts table games), while the tribes won’t submit\u00a0to Stitt’s engraved position that their compacts expired last year.<\/p>\n

Stitt would only tax commercial casinos at 18%\u2014because that’s how much they told him they were willing to pay\u2014and is apparently willing to
\nkiss off the $138 million Oklahoma currently gets from tribal revenue-sharing. Going from over 100 tribal casinos to four private-sector ones would concentrate the market dramatically and would be a sweetheart deal for somebody. Evidently Stitt, in return for commercial casinos, would back \"\"off his stance that tribal gaming is now illegal (after all, under IGRA<\/strong> the tribes would be entitled to any form of gambling offered elsewhere in the state\u2014and tribes would be released from revenue sharing. At least that’s the early interpretation. Stitt is unpredictable, so we’ll see what he really means. He tried to signal flexibility, saying,\u00a0\u201cI don\u2019t begrudge [tribes]\u00a0for fighting for a good deal for themselves.\u00a0But guys, this is not a good deal. I would not be doing a good job as governor if I rubber stamped a contract that goes on forever.\u201d Any would the tribes be doing a good job if they acceded to Stitt’s shakedown?<\/p>\n

Besides, he either has to get the Lege to sign off on this my-way-or-the-highway gambit or get it on the ballot at the next election, either of which runs a cart and horses through the court-imposed stop sign for negotiations on March 31. The governor’s Indian-bashing has resulted in his Cherokee ancestry being called into question.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s one thing to be able to claim a heritage and it\u2019s a whole other thing to respect what that heritage means,\u201d said state Rep. Collin Walke<\/strong> (D), chairman of the Lege’s Native American caucus. Is Stitt going to have to undergo a DNA test?<\/p>\n

* The more states that legalize sports betting, the more the pressure mounts on the dwindling holdouts. (Heck, even Canada<\/strong> is debating single-game wagering.) Case in point: Georgia<\/strong>. The state’s major-league teams have thrown their weight behind a Senate bill that \"\"would enable wagering (including mobile) on practically everything except horse racing\u2014and would ban the use of credit cards. Noting that illegal sports betting is a fact of life, state Sen. Burt Jones<\/strong> (R) testified,\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s found money, in the scheme of things.\u201d While Jones thinks the Georgia constitution needn’t be amended (which would require a popular vote), he’s introduced both such an amendment<\/a> as well as a bill for direct legislative action.<\/p>\n

The bill under debate would establish a\u00a0Georgia Mobile Sports Wagering Integrity Commission<\/strong>. It would license operators and levy a 10% tax on gross revenues (estimated at $15 million\/year\u2014the tax haul, that is). A small amount would be set aside to treat gambling addiction, with 95% of the receipts going \"\"towards the educational system. Claiming that sports bettors are 19X as likely to watch a game if they’ve got money riding on it, Atlanta Hawks<\/strong> CEO Steve Koonin<\/strong> said,\u00a0What we hope to receive in return is generations of fans who love the games we present.\u201d\u00a0\u201cTen percent, at least, of our kids, are going to get hooked on this,\u201d wailed former University of Illinois<\/strong> professor John Kindt<\/strong> while the Georgia Baptist Mission Board<\/strong>‘s Mike Griffin<\/strong> rent his garments, howling that “gambling is legalized fraud.\u201d Betting opponents are always good for cheap entertainment value.<\/p>\n

* \u201cWe had our ups and downs in the past, but nothing like this,\u201d complains Italian hotelier<\/a> Roberto Cassani<\/strong>.\u00a0\u201cAmerican tourists in particular seem to be victims of a collective psychosis. I am really worried.\u201d Maybe he should worry about those 900 confirmed cases of coronavirus in his country. A “collective psychosis”? Yes, that must be the real problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ignoring a court order, voluble\u00a0Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) decided to negotiate through the media again. Instead of dickering with the Sooner State’s tribes over revenue sharing (which he’s supposed to be doing), Stitt threatened to bring private casinos into … 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":[251,133,152,283,22,115,33,74,243,31,19,20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26296"}],"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=26296"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28327,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26296\/revisions\/28327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}