While sledgehammers were pointlessly falling on a slot machine in Albany (see below), a far more important melodrama was playing out nearby. Bankruptcy lawyer Eric Snyder had sought to block Proposal One, on the grounds that its language is too casino-friendly. (It is pretty roseate.) However, he didn’t find a sympathetic ear from acting Supreme Court* Justice Richard Plakin. The latter threw Snyder’s challenge into the circular file, as it were, calling “untimely” and without merit. Snyder promises to appeal.
Snyder had missed an Oct. 1 filing deadline, one of the reasons for Plakin’s rejection. The latter wasn’t buying Snyder’s dog-ate-my-homework argument that, because he heard about the ballot language after the deadline he should still get a day in court.
*–contrary to its name, the Supreme Court is one of New York State‘s lower-ranking judicial bodies. Snyder, incidentally, plans to appeal.
New York, of course, already has casino gambling, but the number of states that won’t consider keeps falling. The toppling domino of the moment is Virginia. There, a legislative study estimates that the state could realize $113 million from a casino-resort in Hampton Roads. Already, the Family Foundation of Virginia is mobilizing in opposition, predicting that Hampton Roads will go the route of off-Boardwalk Atlantic City. However, with casino gambling already drawing off Virginians’ money in West Virginia, North Carolina and Maryland, for starters, how long will it be until the Legislature wants in on the action?
It’s the Night of the Long Knives over at the American Gaming 
Association, as bodies start hitting the floor. Yesterday, AGA President Geoff Freeman (left) announced the sudden departure of Executive Director Judy Patterson. Freeman had a few nice words for Patterson and kept her tethered at a distance from the AGA as a consultant. But if I were Patterson, I wouldn’t sit by the phone waiting for Geoff to ring me up. All remaining Frank Fahrenkopf loyalists at the AGA have just been put on notice and are undoubtedly wondering where the blade will land next.
