
North New Jersey casino expansion: State Senate President Steve Sweeney wants residents to vote in the problem in November 2016.
North nj wants to offer Atlantic City a run for its money. And brand New Jerseyans may get the right yet to vote for casino expansion beyond the Boardwalk.
State Senate President Steve Sweeney has reintroduced legislation calling for a referendum on whether two brand new gambling enterprises should be built in the north part of the state, throughout the water from brand New York City, breaking AC’s longstanding monopoly.
The bill proposes that a vote that is state-wide the issue take destination in November 2016.
The question of North Jersey casino expansion was muted before. Atlantic City has suffered from the legalization of casino gaming within abutting states, and increased competition ended up being a factor that is major 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 both opted to license their casinos that are first the emergence of those new areas will definitely damage the nj-new Jersey market.
Strategic Importance
But North Jersey’s proximity to Manhattan and also the New York greater metropolitan area makes it a strategically beneficial 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 is the right time for the voters to decide. Expanding gambling to North Jersey is the way that is best to revitalize an industry that is essential to your state’s economy in order that we can compete with neighboring states, generate the revenue had a need to revive Atlantic City and contribute to economic growth.’
The bill would ensure that no new casinos could be built within 75 miles of Atlantic City and that casinos into the north would pay a much higher tax on the gaming revenues than the eight percent currently compensated by Atlantic City casinos.
High Taxes
Complex Rock International therefore the Meadowlands Racetrack, which want to build a casino in East Rutherford, house to the New York Giants and New York Jets, have wanted to pay as much as 55 percent in taxes.
Forty-nine percent with this taxation revenue would then go to Atlantic City to pay for the inevitable loss of business, while another 49 percent would go to counties and municipalities, and also the remaining two percent would benefit New Jersey’s horse industry that is racing.
Opinions remain deeply split on the issue, particularly with Atlantic City itself.
‘North Jersey gambling enterprises would be disastrous for our regional economy, driving jobs and investment out of our region,’ stated former mayor James Whelan on Twitter this week.
Present financial reports recommend that AC is bouncing back and that the city’s casino profits were up 55.9 per cent in Q3 this season. However, Moody’s Investment Analysts warned that this had been much more likely a reflection associated with recent casino closures, which have boosted revenues for those that stay. Moody’s said it expected further closures in the approaching year.
Sheldon Adelson Confirmed as Brand New Las Vegas Review-Journal Owner
Who’s The Boss? Apparently, it is now Sheldon Adelson, who has assumed control of the vegas Review-Journal, Nevada’s newspaper that is largest. (Image: politico.com)
Sheldon Adelson has been unmasked since the new owner associated with Las Vegas Review-Journal, having been exposed by the very newspaper he had anonymously purchased a week earlier.
As reported here previously this week, LVRJ staff were puzzled and a little dismayed to understand last Thursday that the newspaper had been sold to a mystery owner for $140 million.
All they were told ended up being that the newly incorporated company, Information + Media Capital Group, was now at the helm and they ought to ask forget about questions.
‘They want you to definitely concentrate on your jobs … do not worry about who they’re,’ was the pep talk offered by one Michael Schroeder, a News + Media Capital Group manager during the first staff meeting beneath the ownership that is new.
And while Schroeder assured staff that their editorial liberty would not be compromised by their new mystery owner, a page that is front on the sale that evening was redacted at Schroeder’s request to remove recommendations to your proprietor’s anonymity.
Calls for Transparency
It wasn’t just LVRJ’s people have been alarmed, as other journalists began calling for transparency too, and the whole story spread as speculation grew. The sale of a newspaper to an owner or organization that refuses to be identified is unprecedented in media history as Esther Thorson, research director for the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism, told the Los Angeles Times.
Additionally, the premium price paid by the buyer suggested they were enthusiastic about buying political clout, rather than a considered financial investment, which made all of it the more crucial that their identity and affiliations be disclosed.
The fact that LVRJ is the dominant news socket in the early-voting move 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, up against a conundrum, RJ staff did what good journalists do: they started searching for answers. Or as Schroeder had put it, they ‘focused on their jobs.’
Sources eventually revealed that Patrick Dumont, Adelson’s son-in-law and senior vice president of finance and strategy at Las Vegas Sands Corporation, had brokered the deal between News + Media Capital Group and its particular previous owner, brand New Media Investment Group.
‘He [Dumont] handles all the investments for the family,’ claimed a source that is lvrj.
For most of the LVRJ staff knew, they might have been risking their jobs by printing the tale, but it doesn’t seem to be the way it is. Instead, the Adelson family produced formal announcement of these ownership of the magazine just hours after the story broke.
Meanwhile, whatever Adelson’s certain explanation for getting their arms in the LVRJ, be it business or politics, his position at the helm may well sit uneasily with most journalists. Adelson already has newspapers in Israel, but he is also had a tendency to sue journalists, separately, for libel into the past.
One journalist that is such current LVRJ columnist John L. Smith, whoever 8-year-old daughter had been enduring from brain cancer tumors at that time of the litigation. His daughter ultimately survived, but Smith was pushed into bankruptcy.
Adelson eventually decided to dismiss the situation with prejudice, after Smith’s attorney effectively argued that the case was not about defamation, but about Adelson making an exemplory case of those who crossed him.
The suit was in reaction to a probing book that included information Adelson had considered defamatory, in the place of such a thing Smith had written at the Review-Journal. It are going to be interesting to see how that relationship unfolds with this saga that is new.
RAWA Dead within the Water for 2015
Representative Jason Chaffetz, whom introduced RAWA to the House and floundered during a recently available hearing that is congressional online gaming. (Image: nbcnews.com)
The Restoration of America’s Wire Act (RAWA) has unsuccessful to attach itself to an omnibus investing bill that would have seen it sail through Congress.
The bill proposes a ban that is federal all types of online gambling with the exception of horseracing and fantasy sports.
RAWA supporters had anticipated that they could tag the bill onto the must-pass Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016, a monstrous 2007-page bit of legislation that largely describes federal fiscal outlays between now and the end of 2016.
In a way, they hoped, RAWA would be passed into legislation with as little fuss as possible, much like the Unlawful online Gambling Enforcement Act was slipped onto the end of legislation created to manage slot protection a decade ago.
It was the tactic that is same in reality, used in 2014, when RAWA also missed the omnibus. Fortunately for America’s online gambling industry, it may have to wait a number of years for the next one to arrive. A year, to be precise.
And since RAWA in its current form is very unlikely to be accepted by both chambers, sneaking onto that bus with out a ticket perhaps remains its best option.
RAWA Flounders
The legislation is unpopular with many lawmakers since the Sheldon Adelson-backed bill smacks of business cronyism.
Meanwhile, lots of the Republican mega-donor’s natural allies within the GOP decry it as an unconstitutional violation associated with Tenth Amendment that seeks to stymie states’ rights, while Democrats who might normally disapprove of online gambling are loathe to install by themselves to a policy created by Adelson.
A initiative that is recent drum up support to push RAWA over the line failed when Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster and Southern Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson exhorted fellow attorneys general to countersign a letter cooking RAWA.
Only eight AG’s were ready 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 had been greatly criticized by Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval for his actions, and numerous felt he had betrayed the Silver State, which opted to legalize and control poker that is online belated 2013.
Adelson Re-raise
Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who introduced RAWA to the House early in the year, fared no better at a recent house hearing associated with legislation, which he himself chaired, aided by the somewhat charged title: ‘A Casino in Every Smartphone: Law Enforcement Implications.’
Chaffetz had presumably hoped it will be sufficient to trot every cliché that is tired of the anti-online gambling movement, with lazy sources to terrorism, money-laundering and youngster corruption, except so it didn’t quite exercise that way, and also the arguments against regulation took a drubbing.
For RAWA, it appears, the chips are down.
Except Adelson has just tossed in a reraise that is massive.
His purchase of the Las Vegas Review-Journal may offer him clout that is extra his bid to gain governmental capital and shape opinions on online gambling in the gaming capital of America.