Slots to the rescue!!!

Slots have helped Delaware's horse industry, according to many. From the Wilmington News Journal:

The business of raising horses has boomed in Delaware since proceeds from slot machine gambling started flowing in December 1995 as life's blood for a dying industry.

Delaware-bred racehorses are selling at higher prices, many former hobbyists have joined the industry full time, and out-of-state owners and breeders have set up shop in Delaware since the Horse Racing Development Act of 1994 was enacted, according to Sal DiMario, director of the Delaware Standardbred Owners Association.

The legislation authorized gambling at Delaware's three racetracks and requires a portion of slot machine revenue to be set aside for horse-racing purses.

The law has spurred growth in the number of new horse farms in Delaware and in businesses that support farms, Delaware Agriculture Secretary Michael Scuse said.

Although he can't offer specific numbers, Scuse is sure that the growth in horse activity has spawned new businesses, new jobs and a substantial flow of tax proceeds into the state's coffers. The state will attempt to quantify that with a study.

FULL STORY

While they don't have the hard data yet, pro-slots people are going to be able to argue that gambling at racetracks has a multiplier effect throughout agriculture in a state with racinos.
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Takeover target?

According to stock analyst Jason Ader, the low price-earnings ratio at Boyd Gaming makes it a prime target for takeover by another company. There's a story to that effect in the LV SUN.

Assuming that another casino company did want to acquire Boyd, they would be assuming an extremely diversified portfolio of casinos, from the downtown Las Vegas properties to the 50% stake in Atlantic City's Borgata. You've got Sam's Town and the Stardust and other properties in Southern Nevada, Delta Downs in Louisiana, and properties in Indiana, Illinois, and Mississippi.

One scenario that I see is a Harrah's/Showboat type acquisiton, where one company acquires a rival corporation to get a strategic asset--in that case the AC Showboat--and the discards the others. So it is possible that an operator could snap up Boyd for some of the larger properties--particularly the Stardust and Borgata--and sell off the downtown Vegas casinos.

Or, this could all be idle speculation.
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Two tiger tales

Roy Horn's mishap with Montecore is becoming a national news item, even one week later. Fox News interviewed Steve Wynn about the incident, and then found their own expert to dispute Wynn's version of events:

"There wasn't a speck of violence in anything that Montecore did," said Steve Wynn who was not present during the performance but said he has seen a tape of the attack.

Animal experts on Thursday said the 600-pound animal was going for the jugular when it took Horn by the neck.

"The cat wasn't trying to protect him," said Jonathan Kraft, who runs the Arizona-based nonprofit group Keepers of the Wild. "That was a typical killing bite."

"I admire the guys, I just think they are sending a wrong message," Kraft said. "The message needs to be: These are wild animals."

Horn's partner, Siegfried Fischbacher, said Wednesday in interviews that the animal had been trying to help Horn after the illusionist slipped during Friday's performance.

FULL STORY

Siegfried's version of events seemed a bit improbable, but as I'm not an animal behaviorist I won't speculate on Montecore's motivations. I have personally learned a great deal from this whole story: Siegfried and Roy's last names (I didn't even know they had them before), what wild cats do when they are stressed, and that 600-pound wild animals can cause a lot of damage.
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Hastert blasts casinos

In the 1950s, congressmen could get some mileage out of denouncing illegal gambling operators as leeches that drained money from working Americans and corrupted police and politicians. In 2003, the Speaker of the House has harsh words for legal casino operators--because they don't contribute enough to the GOP. From the LVRJ:

"The speaker is dismayed and disappointed that the gaming industry continues to place their bets on the wrong team," said Pete Jeffries, Hastert's communications director.

Hastert's criticism followed reports showing Democrats have received $1.17 million, or 54 percent of the gambling industry's contributions for the 2004 election cycle, compared with $1.01 million, or 46 percent for Republicans. The numbers came from The Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit and nonpartisan Washington, D.C., research group.

Frank Fahrenkopf, president of the American Gaming Association and a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, said it's too early to draw conclusions from the casinos' contributions.

"Historically, the contributions from commercial casinos are fairly balanced," Fahrenkopf said.

Fahrenkopf cited two factors that may be holding down contributions by casinos to Republicans. One is a new campaign finance law that prohibits contributions of soft money, or unlimited sums to the national parties. A ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court on the law's constitutionality is pending.

Fahrenkopf also noted that Reid and Rep. Shelley Berkley, another strong Democratic ally of casinos, announced plan to seek re-election early in the cycle.

Like Gibbons, Berkley and Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., are members of the House Gaming Caucus. But neither Berkley nor Porter expressed concern about casinos' contributions to Democrats.

"My experience is that the gaming industry is a very generous supporter of members on both sides of the aisle who support their issues," Berkley said.
FULL STORY

THIS SHOULD BE AN EXPLOSIVE ISSUE!!! My take is that the most powerful politician in Congress is essentially blackmailing the commercial casino industry by demanding that they give more money to his party...or else. What else could that "wrong team" blast imply, other than that the gaming industry will somehow suffer if it does not ante up.

Perhaps I am naive, but I would like to beleive that Congress treats important issues with a semblance of fairness and is not completely in the pocket of whoever gives the most soft-money contributions. Obviously, campaign contributions buy some influence, but this is tantamount to Hastert admitting that it is money and lobbyists, rather than constituents, that determine voting patterns.

This just seems so blatantly cynical that I don't understand why the mainstream press hasn't run with it. Some in the media made Cruz Bustamonte out to be the puppet of California Indians for accepting contributions from them. But one of the most powerful politicians in DC essentially shakes down an industry, and we hear nothing.

If you have a take on this, email me; otherwise I'll think I just dreamed it or something.
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That's all for today. I am sincerely puzzled by the Hastert story. I tend to follow national politics with an avid layperson's interest, and I can't recall ever having heard of anything like this. Maybe it's the norm today.

In that case, you are on the "wrong team" if you haven't bought Suburban Xanadu yet.

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posted by Dave at 2:49 PM