The New York Times recently reported that the Council of the District of Columbia repealed iGaming last week over criticism that it had been approved without sufficient public comment or scrutiny. iGaming was on track to be the first one in the country, and it promised revenue for the district from Texas hold ’em poker, blackjack and bingo.
The District of Columbia and about a half-dozen states have been moving to adopt Internet gambling or have considered doing so. A recent Department of Justice ruling allowed such programs.
The Boston Globe pointed out last week that the Massachusetts granted the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe an eight-month head start to complete a plan for a casino in southeastern Massachusetts. Under the new casino law, if the tribe can acquire land and reach an agreement with the state by the end of July, and the Gaming Commission determines the tribe has clear sailing toward converting that land into a reservation, it automatically wins a casino license. If not, the commission can open up the license to other bidders.
And it turns out the Racino is actually good for the Handle at Aquaduct. The total handle on races is up 6.6 last month, compared with January 2011, according to figures compiled by the New York Racing Association. That includes bets made off premises.
Wagering increased to $117,842,942 last month from $110,556,714 the prior period — or an increase of more than $7 million.
Most of that increase was from off-track betting. The total on-track handle was up 1 percent — to $23,428,941 last month compared to $23,190,785 in the prior period.
Local groups are part of a new coalition that wants money from full-scale casinos to benefit racing and agriculture as much as money from existing video gaming sites, like Saratoga Casino & Raceway, has.
In Nevada, the largest jurisdiction, gross gaming revenue reached $10.7 billion, a 2.8% rise from 2010. The increase was pegged largely on a resurgence in Las Vegas, which is the biggest city in that market, according to the Nevada Gaming Control Board's annual report released Thursday.
But in the USA's second-biggest market, Atlantic City, gross revenue for last year fell 6.9% to $3.3 billion, according to the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement.
In Pennsylvania, the third-largest market, annual gross gaming revenue topped $3 billion for the first time with a 21.6% increase over 2010, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board reports. The outsized gain in Pennsylvania can be tied to casino expansion in the state as well as the state's authorization of table games in mid-2010, says Bill Eadington, director of the Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at the University of Nevada, Reno
Not all of the USA's 22 states with casino gaming have reported their revenue yet for calendar year 2011. But through November, the reported total of $32.56 billion was running 2.3% ahead of the first 11 months of 2010, unaudited data by the American Gaming Association show.
And, there are BIG Plans afoot for the former Concord Hotel near Monticello. Of, course, there have been many big plans for a casino at the Concord. While looking good on paper, the history of trying to get gaming in the Catskills has always been mired and twisted.
. The recently formed New York Gaming Association — made up of the state’s nine racinos — has been running ads that suggest their locales should be the only places for new casinos. The Seneca Nation of Indians has revved up its marketing efforts, touting the hundreds of millions it has invested and the jobs created at its three casinos in Western New York.
The state gave away exclusive rights to slot machines and video lottery gambling devices in Western New York back in 2002, when then-Gov. George E. Pataki struck a gaming compact with the Seneca Nation. In exchange, the Senecas are required to share a portion of casino revenue with the state. The deal runs through 2016 and can be automatically renewed until 2023.
Seneca leaders say those slotlike machines at the Hamburg, Batavia and Finger Lakes racinos already violate that compact, and they’ve withheld exclusivity payments to the state and local government as the dispute simmers.
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