One Town's Desperate Casino Gamble To Fix Unemployment

In putting together the posts for this blog, I have to read a lot of depressing stories. It kind of goes with the territory. As depressing as reports of factories closing, or college students being saddled with unpayable debts or retiree pensions getting slashed may be, the most depressing stories are those in which desperate people are given false hope by some business-as-usual scheme that is destined to fail. Here is the Boston Globe with one such story:

Tom Hoye called a casino resort a one-time chance for this struggling city. Mashpee Wampanoag chairman Cedric Cromwell lavished praise on Taunton’s movers and shakers. And many residents here, accustomed to decline, predicted that a gambling emporium would revive a city that lost its luster long ago.

That buzz of good feeling enveloped the interim City Hall yesterday, as Hoye and Cromwell announced the beginning of a complex process to build a destination casino costing at least $500 million near the heavily traveled intersection of Routes 24 and 140.

“This proposal has the potential to create thousands of employment opportunities for our residents,’’ Hoye said to applause and Native American whoops. “This could potentially be the shot in the arm that our city needs to once again be the gem of Southeastern Massachusetts.’’

The officials stressed that their announcement was merely a beginning and that many hurdles must be cleared before a casino could be built by the Mashpee Wampanoag on a 77-acre, privately owned site in the Liberty and Union Industrial Park.

But yesterday, none of the legal minutiae and mazelike complications seemed to matter to many residents. They spoke of jobs, first-class entertainment, even access to gambling as benefits for a city that has hemorrhaged the mill and precious-metal jobs that once inspired its nickname of Silver City.

“Walk down the streets here and see everybody that’s out of work’’ said Jim Gillon, 59, as he sat at the counter at Joe’s Diner. “It’ll bring jobs to the city. A casino’s got to go somewhere, right? I’ve seen all the silver places and factories go out of business. It’s time to bring some jobs back.’’

Joe Resendes, a 57-year-old landscaper, gave his thumbs-up during a stop at City Hall.

“Taunton needs a kick,’’ Resendes said. “Taunton may be on its last breath. Let it have some air. I’m all for it.’’

The Mashpee Wampanoag hailed the potential for doing business here.

“I have goosebumps, and that’s a good feeling,’’ Cromwell said. “It’s good medicine.’’

“I’m excited about the opportunity for prosperity for our people,’’ said tribal secretary Marie Stone.

Could that set of quotes be any more pathetic and sad? Legalized gambling is already in big trouble in places like Las Vegas and Atlantic City because so many of the players suckers are tapped out, but these people do not seem to have noticed. Worse still is the idea that it is at all desirable to try to rebuild a local economy decimated by globalization by centering it around a predatory industry that often preys on those who can least afford to lose their money.

There was a time in America, not much longer than a generation ago in fact, when legalized gambling faced a steep uphill battle all across the country because of the moral objections and concerns about the ethics of raising revenue on the backs of the vulnerable. But now the desperation out there has grown to the point where a whole community now embraces the idea without hesitation despite the mounting evidence that, moral and ethical questions aside, it no longer works as a form of economic stimulus.


Bonus: Doug Stanhope has a different take on the lost factory jobs

7-11 Store Owners: Online Lottery Sales Could Mean Massive Layoffs

It has been apparent for many years that the continuing advancements in technology are no longer contributing to progress in our society but have in fact become a zero sum game. Here is CBS Chicago with the latest details:

Owners of 7-Eleven stores are warning of massive layoffs to come, unless the Illinois Lottery protects them from competition from the online sales that are expected to start this year.

As WBBM Newsradio’s John Cody reports, the franchise owners say they online lottery sales could force them to lay off 7,000 employees statewide.

Joe Rossi, the head of the Chicago franchise owners’ association, estimates lottery sales bring in 30 percent of the business at 7-Elevens, because lottery buyers buy an average of $5 in goods on top of their tickets.

Rossi says he is not trying to block internet lottery sales, just suggesting the lottery find a way to protect 7-Eleven lottery business and jobs.

Rossi is recommending that the state Lottery require players to fill up a Lottery credit card at 7-Elevens – leaving the store owners with their present 5 percent cut of the business – rather than allowing players to gamble without limit on their credit cards on line at home.

Memo to Joe Rossi: nothing personal, but go fuck yourself. In case you haven't noticed, countless millions of factory workers have been losing their jobs for the past couple of generations thanks to technological innovations and globalization. If we collectively were not willing to try and protect the livelihoods of people who actually built something for living, why would we suddenly start caring about 7-Eleven clerks?

How many of the items stocked on the shelves at 7-Eleven are made overseas because it's cheaper? Perhaps, while we are needlessly burdening lottery players just to protect your company, we should also enact high tariffs to bring the jobs back to America destroyed by 7-Eleven's insistance on purchasing those imported goods just to maximize your bottom line. In fact, I'd rather do that since I don't give a flying fuck about a predatory lottery system designed to separate lower income people from money they cannot afford to spend.

Funny how everybody in America is all about singing the praises of the "progress" that technology and globalization supposedly brings until the day comes that it actually affects their own bottom line. Then they suddenly get all butthurt and protectionist on us.


Bonus: "When I win the lottery, I'm gonna buy all the girls on my street a color teevee and a bottle of French perfume"

States Doubling Down on Bad Gambling Bets

I've posted several stories here on TDS about recent decline of the gaming gambling industry in the United States as the throngs who used to fill the casinos find themselves unable to come up cash to throw away on the slots or at the Blackjack table. And yet despite all of the evidence that the industry is in deep trouble and no longer the cash cow it used top be, there are still plenty of localities lining up, hoping to boost tax revenues by overcoming their previous resistance to legalizing gambling and opening casinos of their own. MSNBC has the details:

A Malaysian company's plan to build a $4 billion convention center and big-time casino on the outskirts of New York City could be the biggest shot fired yet in a tourism arms race that has seen a growing number of Eastern states embrace gambling as a way to lure visitors and drum up revenue.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced last week that he would work with the Genting Group, one of the world's largest and most successful gambling companies, to transform the storied, but sleepy, Aqueduct horse track into a megaplex that would eventually include the nation's largest convention center, 3,000 hotel rooms, and a major expansion of a casino that began operating at the site in October.

The proposal came less than two months after once-puritanical Massachusetts passed a law allowing up to three resort casinos, plus a slot machine parlor, at locations around the state.

Ohio is poised to see its first commercial casinos open this year, after voters approved up to four gambling halls in 2009. Maryland's first casino opened last year, with more on the way. Pennsylvania's first casinos opened in 2006, and already the state is threatening to surpass Atlantic City as the nation's second-largest gambling market.

And in Florida, lawmakers are hotly debating a whopper of a bill that would allow up to three multibillion-dollar casinos, plus additional slot machines at dog and horse tracks. Genting appears confident the law will pass. It has already spent around $450 million to acquire waterfront property in Miami, where it wants to build a $3.8 billion complex that would include a casino, dozens of restaurants and a shopping mall.

States have embraced casinos, after years of trepidation about their societal costs, for two simple reasons: a promise of a rich new revenue source, plus the possibility of stimulating tourism.

The article itself actually does a very good job of raising questions as to whether this latest desperate revenue grab by the state governments is at all advisable:

Some experts, however, have questioned whether revenue bonanzas that large are realistic, and say states should be cautious about giving up too much to lure these projects. Competition for a limited pool of gambling and tourism dollars is already fierce, and recent years haven't been kind to casinos.

Nevada's larger casinos lost $4 billion in 2011, according to a report released this month by the state's Gaming Control Board, as the state continued to feel the effects of the global economic slump.

As gambling options have increased in the East, revenue has slid substantially at the pair of Indian tribe-owned casinos in Connecticut and declined by a dramatic 30 percent in Atlantic City, which has lost customers in droves to the new casinos in nearby Philadelphia, according to David Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.

So the latest players in the legalized gambling game plan to spend billions of dollars to spread the wealth that much thinner even as the slowly collapsing economy continues to squeeze the mass of players suckers they need to be able to make a profit.

How much more proof do you need that the so-called "leaders" of our society are completely out of ideas and have resorted to merely shuffling the deck chairs on the titanic?


Bonus: Wait a minute, is that music I hear on the promenade deck?

The Powerball Lottery is Betting that Doubling the Price of a Ticket Will Increase Sales

In the interests of full disclosure, I should start this post by stating that I have never once in my life bought a lottery ticket. These government run gambling entities are even more tilted in favor of the house than any Las Vegas casino. For most of them, half of the collected revenue is taken right off the top in taxes, and I already pay enough money in taxes, thank you very much.

It's a good bet that the economic downturn is hurting the bottom lines of the state lotteries as people find themselves with less spare cash to blow on lottery tickets. To combat this phenomenon, the Powerball lottery has come up with a rather baffling solution, double the cost of a ticket. Here is Yahoo News with the details:

Get ready to pay more for Powerball: Ticket prices are going up to $2.

Lottery organizers hope the price change will entice more people to play because jackpots are getting bigger and the odds of winning are improving.

Because raising the cost of your product by 100% during troubled economic times is ALWAYS a sure fire way of increasing sales. You would think that would be obvious, but apparently is isn't to the morons who are running the Powerball lottery, as shown by this quote:

Lottery officials say they are betting players will like the variety and changes made in the game. But some players say the price increase may keep them from playing as often or not at all.

The real problem, of course, is that the lottery is being run by a bunch of well-to-do twits who can't fathom why a mere extra dollar in cost would deter people from buying their product. After all, they themselves have plenty of extra dollars lying around. I suspect that what they really need to do is spend a couple of hours sometime hanging around at a shabby convenience store observing the broken down state of many of the people who actually buy lottery tickets. Then they might understand that not everyone in America has spare dollars just falling out of their fucking pockets. But of course they'd never condescend to do anything like that.


Bonus: The short film version of Shirley Jackson's classic short story is now available on You Tube:

The Mohegan Sun Casino is $1.6 Billion in Debt

In yet another blow for state and local governments who think more legalized gambling is a great way to increase tax revenues comes a story from the Norwich Bulletin about deep financial problems being experienced by the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut:

The parent entity of Mohegan Sun recently received a waiver from its bankers, something the casino operator sees as a vote of confidence in its future. Yet it could be the calm before a major storm in Connecticut’s economy in 2012, an analyst said.

Foxwoods Resort Casino, whose parent also is in talks to restructure debt, and Mohegan Sun are on course for severe financial problems in the year ahead, said Clyde Barrow, a University of Massachusetts Dartmouth professor of public policy who follows the New England casino industry.

The Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority was unable to complete a refinancing agreement during its fiscal first quarter, which ended today. With that, the authority’s auditors attached a “going concern” warning to 2011 financial statements, authority CEO Mitchell Etess said Thursday.

A filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission said lack of a resolution would materially impair Mohegan Sun’s ability to operate.

So just how bad is it?

Mohegan’s total debt as of Sept. 30 was $1.6 billion, the authority reported. Of that, $811.1 million comes due within the next 12 months, including $535 million that needs to be paid by March 9 and $250 million in 8 percent notes that mature on April 1. This debt will need to be refinanced before the due dates, the authority said Thursday.

So what are the overall implications for the Nutmeg State?

Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun are two of Connecticut’s largest employers and major sources of revenue to the state government. Both are members of the Chamber of Commerce of Eastern Connecticut. Chamber President and CEO Tony Sheridan declined to comment on the Sun’s finances Friday, saying he was still studying them.

What is there to study, exactly? The casinos are deep in debt, and unless there is a miraculous economic recovery they are soon going to have to declare bankruptcy. Looks like Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Tony Sheridan is about to find out what Las Vegas already knows: a gambling-based economy is only sustainable so long as the marks still have money in their pockets. As the old saying goes, you can't get blood out of a stone.