No megaresorts in Florida’s future; Big experiment at Sands Bethlehem

Bowing to political realities, Florida state Rep. Dana Young (R, left) has Slim-Fasted her omnibus gambling-expansion bill from 300 pages to 60. Among the items gone into the shredder was a provision for two casino megaresorts in South Florida. So, for another year, the door to the Sunshine State is slammed in Las Vegas Sands‘ face. The provisions that remain are of a decidedly smaller scale, such as allowing dog tracks to convert to racinos that don’t actually conduct races. A proposal to put racinos in Palm Beach County and Lee County is gone but a cap on future gaming permits remains. Over in the state Senate, where a one-year extension of the Seminole Tribe casino compact is being pondered, an amendment has been offered that would also permit ‘decoupling’ of dog racing from other forms of wagering. Another amendment would convert Palm Beach Kennel Club to a racino. Rumor has it the Seminoles might keep dealing blackjack even without a new compact, but that seems like asking for trouble with the state.

* Sands, meanwhile, is unveiling plans for Sands Bethlehem that would scrap a bar area for a mammoth version of the “stadium” of electronic table games seen at the Venetian. Meant to take the fear out of the table-game experience for millennials, the arena will have 150 tables and live dealers, plus low minimum bets … on weekdays, anyway. Vice President of Property Strategy & Optimization Dennis Doughtery told regulators, “We’re taking a bar that’s not doing very well and replacing it with a gaming option we think will do very well and attract new customers to the property” from New York and New Jersey. (Gotham rival Resorts World New York only offers slots.)

What Sands is doing is adapting to American tastes something that’s tried and true … in Singapore and Macao. If it works, Sands will have applied a jolt to the movement of young gamblers away from slots and toward tables. Play will be faster because TITO technology will supplant the by-hand payout of winning hands. Punters also play only against the dealer, not each other. By increasing its reliance upon table games (albeit ones that require only a pittance of manpower to operate), Sands gains some relief from Pennsylvania‘s onerous slot taxes. If the experiment works — and there’s scant reason to believe it won’t — expect speedy emulation both in the Keystone State and elsewhere.

* “I don’t have a passion for gambling. I do, however, have a passion for revenue,” said a New Hampshire lawmaker looking with favor on this year’s attempt to legalize two casinos in the Granite State. They’d each have to pay a $60 million licensing fee, good for 10 years, one could have 3,500 slots and 160 tables while its smaller sibling would be restricted to 1,500 slots and 80 tables. The state’s Lottery Commission estimates that the big casino could be open by 2018 and would engender $135 million in revenue. Since that estimate does not take casinos in Massachusetts into its computations it invites skepticism.

Citing the volatility of casino revenue, state Rep. Neal Kurk (R) testified, “If your objective is to create a revenue source that grows with the economy, this is not the one for us.” The bill enjoys bipartisan support in the state Senate but is anything other than a done deal in the heavily Republican House. It also remains to be seen whether Gov. Maggie “One Casino” Hassan (D) will sign off on something significantly bigger than her vision for gambling in the Granite State.

Supporters of the measure are banking on bipartisan dissatisfaction with this year’s budget, which came up short of satisfying either side’s wish list. “All of us would have had a different budget if there would have been more revenue. This might not be the method that every one of us would choose as our favorite, but it’s here now and it’s real,” said state Rep. Katherine Rogers (D). Your move, New Hampshire.