{"id":6062,"date":"2011-03-22T11:34:44","date_gmt":"2011-03-22T19:34:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=6062"},"modified":"2018-09-18T11:30:04","modified_gmt":"2018-09-18T19:30:04","slug":"adelson-hits-florida-speed-bump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/adelson-hits-florida-speed-bump\/","title":{"rendered":"Adelson hits Florida speed bump"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Gov. Rick Scott<\/strong>‘s big — and rather sudden — push to bring (more) private-sector casinos to Florida<\/strong> has run into a road block. The governor’s Tea Party<\/strong> base, of all people, is throwing up opposition … and not for the reason you might think. Its objections stem not from religious conservatism but the fiscal variety, contending that Scott is shooting dice with the state’s budget<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Specifically, South Florida Tea Party<\/strong> Chairman Everett Wilkinson<\/strong> (below<\/em>) charges that Scott is a catspaw of Las Vegas Sands<\/strong> CEO Sheldon Adelson<\/strong>. (Well, that’s been pretty obvious.) More of a concern to him, however, is that legalization of full Vegas-style gambling would breach the state’s compact with the Seminole Tribe<\/strong>, resulting in an immediate cutoff of Seminole revenue-sharing arrangements with Florida. Wilkinson estimates the resultant shortfall at a minimum of $1.9 billion across a five-year period.<\/p>\n

If he wanted<\/strong>, Wilkinson could raise a few other germane objections; for example, history has shown that critical mass works best for creating casino-destination markets (Las Vegas<\/strong>, Biloxi<\/strong>, Tunica<\/strong>, early Reno<\/strong> and Atlantic City<\/strong>), so why scatter the proposed five casinos into distant protectorates? Besides, only two Florida counties have even approved the halfway measure that is racinos. Who’s to say that, if the “exclusivity zones” go into law, there won’t be just one mega-casino, in Miami<\/strong>? (And no prizes for guessing who gets it.) It’s a very real possibility.<\/p>\n

\"\"For that matter,<\/strong> even though the Seminole casinos have a perception issue as second- and third-rate facilities, how much of their $2 billion revenue base will defect to “Venetian Miami<\/strong>” or whatever? (Relatively little, I suspect.) This last is an important consideration when preparing to cast aside a guaranteed amount of Seminole moolah for the two birds in the bush that Adelson is promising.<\/p>\n

It’s not just the Tea Party and the Seminoles who balk at the bill. The state’s racinos and parimutuels look upon it as their death knell. S&G<\/em> sympathizes, as Isle of Capri Casinos<\/strong> and other pioneer operators in the state have had a rough early go of it. However, it looks as though — with a bit of legislative help<\/a> — live racing in the Sunshine State is about to go the way of the dodo. In the case of greyhound racing, good riddance.<\/p>\n

Way up north<\/strong>, in Minnesota<\/strong>, lawmakers are also weighing the risk vs. reward equation<\/a> of breaching tribal gambling exclusivity. Unlike other states which have negotiated higher tribal tax rates, Minnesotans are pondering a limited amount of private-sector casino gambling. Of understandable concern to the tribes is, once you’ve made a couple of exceptions to their exclusivity<\/a>, where does it end? And, if so, why keep sharing tribal dollars with Gov. Mark Dayton<\/strong> (D)?<\/p>\n

On his northern front<\/strong>, Adelson got a good-news\/bad-news bulletin about Genting’s schedule for opening Class II gaming at Resorts World New York<\/strong> (later debut but more machines overall). It remains to be seen how much the convenience factor which the Aqueduct<\/strong> racetrack site presents to the New York City<\/strong> market actually counts versus<\/em> the superior array of games Adelson provides at his Pennsylvania<\/strong> casino.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gov. Rick Scott‘s big — and rather sudden — push to bring (more) private-sector casinos to Florida has run into a road block. The governor’s Tea Party base, of all people, is throwing up opposition … and not for the … 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":[23,28,120,67,85,43,35,101,95,33,111,79,12,19,20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6062"}],"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=6062"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22472,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6062\/revisions\/22472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}