
The MGM Springfield is one casino that is possible to Massachusetts in the longer term; it got a thumbs up from local voters this week
This week that is past lots of voting taking place across Massachusetts, including two key votes on proposed casino projects within the state. The results had been split, giving both casino proponents and their opponents something to crow about.
Hard Rock Hits the Skids
The bigger vote came in town of West Springfield, where there was a proposal to build an $800 million intense Rock casino. The casino was expected to be among the competitors that are key the Western Massachusetts casino license.
But that project ended up being dealt exactly what could be a deadly blow on Tuesday, after the voters of West Springfield decided to reject the plan in a referendum that is public. About 55% of voters here voted against the casino, with 4,165 coming out from the project versus just 3,413 because of it. The loss came as a surprise to many, because the campaign saw supporters of the casino opponents that are drastically outspend.
That rejection narrows the competition for the sole casino license in Western Massachusetts. During the brief moment, it would appear that only two applicants have actually a chance at that permit: an MGM project in Springfield, and a Mohegan Sun proposition that would be located in Palmer. The Palmer proposition still needs to be voted on by residents, while the MGM plan was approved by Springfield voters.
Heavy Investing No Assistance
The western Springfield casino would have been built on the web site associated with the Eastern States Exposition, home to your Big E the biggest agricultural fair in New England. In early stages, it appeared as though Hard Rock had little chance to overcome initial opposition to the project. That changed a bit as the casino chain invested almost $1 million campaigning for the task and made promises about the amount of revenue they would make for West Springfield yearly.
Ultimately, however, opposition teams could actually make their instance better, and also the task was soundly defeated. The victory had been seen as a big victory for anti-casino groups across the state, all of which are defectively financed in comparison to their pro-casino opponents.
The other vote in the state might have had an even more result that is surprising. A plan to develop a slot parlor at Plainridge Racecourse was overwhelming approved with 76% of the vote in the town of Plainville. An overall total of 1,582 voters arrived in favor of the master plan versus only 502 against.
The win capped a turnaround that is remarkable Plainridge. Simply month that is last state regulators determined that the track’s ownership group was unfit to compete for the solitary slots parlor permit that has been available. But Penn National made a move that is last-minute purchase the track, overtaking the slots parlor proposal as well. That was enough to satisfy the Gaming Commission, which offered their approval for the project.
Of course, not everybody was happy with the racino’s approval.
‘ The process isn’t working,’ said Mary-Ann Greanier, a known user of No Plainville Racino. ‘The safeguards we were told to expect are not happening.’
The Plainville project will compete against racino proposals in Raynham and Leominster, though the Leominster project must be approved by still voters.
A Wynn Resorts casino project in Everett, and a Suffolk Downs project in East Boston along with these projects, there are also three applicants for a license in the Greater Boston area: a Foxwoods proposal in Milford. There is also a license that is single in Southeastern Massachusetts, but as of yet, no developers have applied for a license in that area.
Gambling Industry Criticizes Very First Draft of Florida Pari-Mutuel Rules
Parimutuel wagering and jai-alai are getting the focus as Florida reviews its racetrack and rules that are betting.
In an effort to reform their state’s gambling industry, Florida is working on several fronts towards clarifying and changing most of the rules that govern betting in the Sunshine State. One area of attention is on pari-mutuel wagering: the betting that goes on during the state’s race tracks and frontons that are jai-alai their state. But industry insiders state that the first draft of guidelines that have actually been proposed by state regulators just won’t work.
Workshop to Hammer Out Wagering Rules
Those rules will ultimately be discussed at a workshop with the Division of Pari-Mutuel Wagering on October 16, but were first released in a draft kind final week. The rules are designed to stop a growing number of questionable methods that are obviously outside of what the state intends to enable at such venues. And while some of those new rules work, those in the industry say that many just show that regulators aren’t familiar enough with Florida’s gambling industry to create such sweeping changes.
‘Some of them make sense,’ said Ken Stirling, executive director of the Florida Horsemen’s Benevolent and defensive Association. ‘ Some of them haven’t been thought out extremely well. One or two are pretty silly.’
One of many big areas covered in the draft rules is horse racing regulations designed to expel racing that is non-standard. Many in the industry agree that this is a good notion, as ‘barrel racing’ and ‘flag-drop’ racing have already been seen by some operators in order to cheaply earn payments that will also enable them to offer card rooms or slot machines alongside those races.
The latest rules would help put an end to such practices. They’d bar ‘the racing animal to improve course in response to virtually any hurdles regarding the racing surface’ and ensure that jockeys conform to uniform and fat requirements that couldn’t be a problem for legitimate racing operations.
Disagreement Over Acceptable Race Lengths
But the laws don’t stop there, and that’s where some feel that the rules go wrong. According to Stirling, some among these guidelines could devastate the race industry if they aren’t changed.
For example, the regulations that are new require that all races are at minimum six furlongs in length something that will make sense if you’ve only seen the Triple Crown races or the Breeder’s Cup, but which makes no sense for the industry as a whole.
‘[The guideline that] no race must be smaller than…six furlongs…is a killer,’ Stirling said, noting that such races would be too long for two-year-old horses rushing into the summer time. ‘That’s silly. We run child races at 4.5 furlongs and we’ve been doing it for a 100 years. I know they are in Tallahassee, but we’ve these plain things called phones.’
He additionally objected to a rule that states that each and every race must have at the least six horses a guideline which could cause races to be canceled because of last minute scratches.
Jai-Alai would be affected by the regulations that are new. For instance, each location would be required to have eight players that are certified rotation. This rule comes in response to a debate at Ocala Poker and Jai-Alai, which began the 2012 season with only two players.
While there may be issues with the rules, unit director Leon Biegalski says there shouldn’t be a issue, and that the workshops are made to help iron out these issues with all the industry’s assistance.
‘They’re draft rules. They’re a starting point. We want to make sure that most of the permit holders and all sorts of the stake holders are on the exact same web page in terms of just what the regulation is that’s around and what ought to be out there,’ Biegalski stated.
2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics Could Mean Gaming Industry Silver
Casino industry giants were probably just as excited as these citizens that are japanese news associated with the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympic Games.
It is difficult to think that 2020 is only seven years away, but that’s just how long we have before download lucky nugget casino the Tokyo that is newly-granted summer will be upon us. But athletes-in-training won’t be the only ones reaching for silver, since the worldwide casino industry is likewise attempting to accomplish what up until now has seemed very nearly insurmountable: getting legal casinos sanctioned, developed, built, and up and running in time to ride the tourism revolution that those Tokyo games are bound to bring in. With Japan the very last great untapped Asian gaming market, it’s a prize that many within the gaming industry are inspired to accomplish.
Could the Games be the required drive?
Japan infamous for decades of foot dragging on the legal casino issue now has extra motivation to help make it all happen too; the island nation must find a way to foot the expected $1.53 billion bill they will be underwriting to produce the venues and infrastructure necessary to host A olympic season. To that particular end, two feasible casinos on the drawing boards, one in Tokyo and the other in Osaka, could make $10 billion in yearly gambling revenues, making them exactly the bucks cows that the town needs to pay its way. Japan gambling industry specialist Grant Govertsen principal of Las Vegas-based Union Gaming Group states that amount would be more compared to $6.2 billion that the entire Las vegas, nevada Strip took in for 2012; so it ain’t chump change.
Those profits would produce an estimated 10 % per casino for Tokyo, never to point out licensing that is additional and local municipal fees. Govertsen told investors he is bullish about all of it.
‘ We think the federal government should consider integrated resort development, at the very least in Tokyo, as a way to assist the related Olympics infrastructure come to fruition,’ he told investors following a Tokyo games announcement. And Govertsen isn’t the only person who smells profit the Asian metropolis; lots of the gaming industry’s biggest players made tracks to Tokyo just if they could scout out land for potential casino developments as they heard the announcement to see.
Industry Leaders Scouting Websites
Word is out that Sheldon Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands Corp. has its eye on a Tokyo Bay web site, on a piece of reclaimed land, and he’s perhaps not alone riding their covered wagon across the prairie to stake some land out. American behemoths MGM Resorts International and Caesars Entertainment Corp. (the latter of who’s death seems to be grossly exaggerated for a basis that is daily have been spotted in Japan, as has overseas industry giants SJM and Melco Crown Entertainment. Everyone appears to want in on the potential Gold Rush of 2020.
‘Japan represents a historic window of opportunity for tourism expansion in a nation with an incredibly rich social history,’ said MGM Resorts Executive Vice President Alan Feldman. ‘Tokyo is in an extraordinary position to re-energize the entire nation’s tourism and entertainment industry.’ Feldman says MGM has been monitoring happenings in Japan for almost 2 yrs, and both speaking about possible business alliances along with testing the heat for legislative passage.
And even though Japan was not noted for moving quickly in this arena, the 2020 Tokyo Olympics could possibly be simply the fire they require to bring the gambling pot up to a boil at final.
‘In the case of Tokyo, we think there would be government that is significant to accomplish an integrated resort in time for the opening of 2020 Olympics,’ Govertsen said.
