Going against Gov. Jack Markell (D), Delaware lawmakers are wrapping up a relief package for the state’s beleaguered racino industry. The tax rate on table games would be cut 
from 29% to 15% and the $3 million licensing fee would be eliminated. The state would also increase its percentage of vendor costs to 43.5%, costing taxpayers an additional $3 million annually. Slot machine revenue would get a 5% credit to offset marketing and capex costs. (“They want us to pay the full thing and that’s not fair,” said one detractor.) A controversial add-on would divert 1% of revenue from the state to the horseracing industry. Main proponent state Sen. Brian Bushweller (D) was forthright in his reasoning, saying, “We’re simply taking too much money. The simple solution to a simple problem is let’s take less money from the casino industry.”
Added Dover Downs CEO Denis McGlynn, “If you want this industry to fight the competition, you have to give us the resources to do it.” Even Bushweller opponent House Majority Leader Valerie Longhurst (D) shared his fatigue with the year-after-year process of temporary fixes. “Yes, we are getting tired of coming back and coming back,” she said. “I’m pretty much done with it.” Bushweller’s got a tough row to hoe but the urgency of the problem in Delaware is hard to deny.
* Gov. Chris Christie (R) has appointed corporate finance adviser Kevin Lavin his emergency czar for Atlantic City with a mandate to “place the finances of Atlantic City in stable condition on a long-term basis by any and all lawful means, including the restructuring of municipal operations and the adjustment of the debts of Atlantic City pursuant to law.” Christie hasn’t rejected state Sen. Steve Sweeney‘s Pilot Program, which would put Atlantic City’s casinos on fixed annual payments, but he’s not acting on it at this time.
To those who suggested Christie was usurping Atlantic City’s autonomy, the governor replied, “We need to take more aggressive action, and that’s the action that I’m taking 
today.” “I reserve the write to take … additional actions,” he warned in a written statement. Mayor Don Guardian (R) had “inherited an awful mess,” Christie said and “What we are doing is giving to the mayor through the emergency manager enhanced tools to be able to bring this to a successful resolution.”
Guardian was guarded in his response to the new supervision. “We don’t know what their jurisdiction is going to be, other than that they are going to be working with us,” he said. “We do need to rethink how we are doing business in Atlantic City, because the assessed values have decreased so drastically, as no city in the United States has ever faced.” It should comfort Hizzoner that Lavin’s powers are fairly circumscribed.
* Proposed slot reductions at Horseshoe Baltimore and Maryland Live are on hold while the Free State ponders the budgetary implications to its bottom line. With slots taxed at 67%, the removal of 600 machines would mean a $760,000 budgetary hole for the state. Table game taxes (20%) wouldn’t come near to making that up. So if you’re running a casino in Maryland, you may think you’re the boss but the state has other ideas.
