
North New Jersey casino expansion: State Senate President Steve Sweeney wants residents to vote in the issue in November 2016.
North New Jersey wants to give Atlantic City a run for its money. And New Jerseyans may yet obtain the right to vote for casino expansion beyond the Boardwalk.
State Senate President Steve Sweeney has reintroduced legislation calling for a referendum on whether two new gambling enterprises should be built in the part that is north of state, across the water from New York City, breaking AC’s longstanding monopoly.
The bill proposes that a state-wide vote on the issue take place in November 2016.
The question of North Jersey casino expansion is muted before. Atlantic City has experienced from the legalization of casino gaming within abutting states, and increased competition was a major factor in four Atlantic City casino closures into the last two years.
Pennsylvania legalized casino gaming in 2007, and recently overtook its neighbor in gaming revenue. Meanwhile, New York State and Massachusetts have actually both opted to license their first casinos and the emergence of these new markets will certainly damage the New Jersey market.
Strategic Importance
But North Jersey’s proximity to Manhattan plus the New York greater metropolitan area makes it a strategically advantageous location for casinos, which Sweeney believes would lure droves of gamblers across the Hudson.
‘The question of gaming outside of Atlantic City is certainly debated,’ Sweeney said. ‘ Now may be the time for the voters to decide. Expanding gambling to North Jersey is the best means to revitalize a market that is important to the state’s economy to ensure that we can compete with neighboring states, generate the revenue needed to revive Atlantic City and contribute to economic growth.’
The bill would guarantee that no new casinos could be built within 75 miles of Atlantic City and that casinos into the north would pay a much higher income tax on the gaming revenues compared to eight % presently paid by Atlantic City casinos.
High Taxes
Hard Rock Overseas and also the Meadowlands Racetrack, which want to build a casino in East Rutherford, home to the New York Giants and New York Jets, have actually offered to pay because much as 55 percent in taxes.
Forty-nine percent of this tax revenue would then head to Atlantic City to pay for the inevitable loss of business, while another 49 percent would head to counties and municipalities, plus the remaining two percent would benefit nj-new Jersey’s horse industry that is racing.
Opinions remain deeply divided on the issue, particularly with Atlantic City itself.
‘North Jersey gambling enterprises would be disastrous for our regional economy, driving jobs and investment away from our region,’ said mayor that is former Whelan on Twitter this week.
Recent financial reports recommend that AC is bouncing back and that the town’s casino earnings were up 55.9 per cent in Q3 this season. However, Moody’s Investment Analysts warned that this was much more likely a reflection for the casino that is recent, that have boosted revenues for those that remain. Moody’s said it expected further closures in the year ahead.
Sheldon Adelson Confirmed as New Las Vegas Review-Journal Owner
Who is The Boss? evidently, it is now Sheldon Adelson, who has assumed control for the nevada Review-Journal, Nevada’s largest newsprint. (Image: politico.com)
Sheldon Adelson has been unmasked as the new owner for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, having been exposed by the very newspaper he had anonymously purchased per week earlier.
As reported right here earlier in the day this week, LVRJ staff were puzzled and a little dismayed to master last Thursday that the newspaper had been sold up to a mystery owner for $140 million.
All they were told ended up being that the newly incorporated business, News + Media Capital Group, was now at the helm and they ought to ask you can forget questions.
‘They want you to consider your jobs … do not concern yourself with whom these are typically,’ was the pep talk made available from one Michael Schroeder, a News + Media Capital Group supervisor during the first staff meeting under the new ownership.
And while Schroeder assured staff that their editorial liberty would never be compromised by their new mystery owner, a front web page story on the sale that evening was redacted at Schroeder’s demand to get rid of sources to the proprietor’s anonymity.
Calls for Transparency
It was not just LVRJ’s people who had been alarmed, as other journalists began calling for transparency too, and the whole tale spread as speculation expanded. As Esther Thorson, research director for the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism, told the Los Angeles circumstances, the sale of the newspaper to an owner or organization that refuses to be identified is unprecedented in media history.
Furthermore, the premium price paid by the buyer recommended these people were interested in buying clout that is political rather than a considered financial investment, which made all of it the more important that their identification and affiliations be disclosed.
The fact that LVRJ is the dominant news outlet in the early-voting swing state of Nevada suggested to many that the buyer might be a wealthy conservative, and Adelson’s name began to be cited by speculative commentators.
Public Statement
Meanwhile, faced with a conundrum, RJ staff did what journalists that are good: they started digging for answers. Or as Schroeder had put it, they ‘focused on their jobs.’
Sources fundamentally revealed that Patrick Dumont, Adelson’s son-in-law and vice that is senior of finance and strategy at Las Vegas Sands Corporation, had brokered the deal between News + Media Capital Group and its own previous owner, New Media Investment Group.
‘He [Dumont] handles all the investments for the family,’ claimed a source that is lvrj.
For all the LVRJ staff knew, they could have been risking their jobs by printing the tale, but it doesn’t look like the truth. Instead, the Adelson family made a announcement that is formal of ownership of the magazine just hours after the tale broke.
Meanwhile, whatever Adelson’s certain explanation for getting their hands in the LVRJ, be it business or politics, their position at the helm might well sit uneasily with most journalists. Adelson already owns newspapers in Israel, but he is also had a tendency to sue journalists, individually, for libel into the past.
One such journalist was current LVRJ columnist John L. Smith, whose 8-year-old daughter ended up being enduring from brain cancer at that time of the litigation. His daughter ultimately survived, but Smith had been pushed into bankruptcy.
Adelson eventually agreed to dismiss the situation with prejudice, after Smith’s attorney successfully argued that the case had been not about defamation, but about Adelson making an exemplory instance of people who crossed him.
The suit was at response to a probing book that included information Adelson had considered defamatory, instead of anything Smith had written at the Review-Journal. It are interesting to see how that relationship unfolds with this new saga.
RAWA Dead into the Water for 2015
Representative Jason Chaffetz, whom introduced RAWA to your House and floundered during a current hearing that is congressional online gaming. (Image: nbcnews.com)
The Restoration of America’s Wire Act (RAWA) has failed to attach itself to an omnibus spending bill that would have seen it sail through Congress.
The bill proposes a federal ban on all forms of online gambling with the exception of horseracing and fantasy recreations.
RAWA supporters had anticipated that they could tag the bill onto the must-pass Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016, a monstrous 2007-page piece of legislation that largely outlines federal fiscal outlays between now therefore the end of 2016.
A decade ago in such a way, they hoped, RAWA would be passed into law with as little fuss as possible, much like the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was slipped onto the end of legislation designed to regulate port security.
It had been the tactic that is same in fact, used in 2014, when RAWA also missed the omnibus. Fortunately for America’s online gambling industry, it may have to wait a long time for the next one to arrive. A year, become precise.
And since RAWA in its present form is very unlikely to be accepted by both chambers, sneaking onto that bus with no ticket perhaps remains its option that is best.
RAWA Flounders
The legislation is unpopular with many lawmakers since the Sheldon Adelson-backed bill smacks of business cronyism.
Meanwhile, most of the Republican mega-donor’s normal allies into the GOP decry it as an unconstitutional breach regarding the Tenth Amendment that seeks to stymie states’ rights, while Democrats who might normally disapprove of online gambling are loathe to install on their own to a policy developed by Adelson.
A recent effort to drum up support to push RAWA on the line failed when Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster and Southern Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson exhorted fellow attorneys basic to countersign a letter cooking RAWA.
Just eight AG’s were prepared to put their name to the initiative.
Controversially, one of those was Nevada AG Adam Laxalt, whose 2014 election campaign received funding from Adelson. Laxalt was greatly criticized by Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval for his actions, and numerous felt he had betrayed the Silver State, which opted to legalize and regulate poker that is online belated 2013.
Adelson Re-raise
Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), whom introduced RAWA to the House in early stages in the 12 months, fared no better at a recent house hearing associated with the legislation, which he himself chaired, because of the somewhat charged title: ‘A Casino in Every Smartphone: Law Enforcement Implications.’
Chaffetz had presumably hoped it would be sufficient to trot every tired cliché of the anti-online gambling movement, with lazy sources to terrorism, money-laundering and kid corruption, except that it didn’t quite work out that way, and the arguments against regulation took a drubbing.
For RAWA, it seems, the chips are down.
Except Adelson has just tossed in a reraise that is massive.
His purchase of the Las Vegas Review-Journal may provide him extra clout in his bid to gain political capital and shape opinions on online gambling in the gaming money of America.