“In the 16 years we’ve been down there, I’ve paid the city $80.5 million in tax revenue. We saved the city from bankruptcy. We’ve been paying the city payroll including the Police Department for the last 16 years and I don’t think anyone has done as much for the city and received so little.” So speaks Larry Flynt, who is balking at Gardena, California‘s quid pro quo for tax breaks he is seeking for his existing card room and his proposed rehabilitation of the disgraced Normandie Casino as the Lucky Lady Casino. The city wants a guaranteed $800,000 a month from each card room before it will give Flynt tax rebates on revenues exceeding $2 million monthly. City officials also don’t like the buxom woman who serves as Flynt’s logo but there’s nothing they can do about it — and she looks pretty inoffensive to us.
Flynt’s got a point: It does seem extortionate. His response is to threaten to shutter the Lucky Lady before it even reopens. “Yes, I did add a ninth-hour provision that the two casinos must meet $800,000 a month to effectuate the other part of the agreement. I totally understand the feeling of Mr. Flynt relative to this, but I also have to look at what it takes to make the city sustainable,” said City Manager Mitch Lansdell. The 800K figure was reached by extrapolating what the Normandie and Flynt’s Hustler Casino have historically paid. Flynt responded that he’s doing the city a service by plowing $17 million into the Normandie (“a piece of junk”), atop the $1 million he’s already committed to new designs, chips, cards and uniforms, followed by $60 million over the next four years. Without those upgrades, he says, the Lucky Lady won’t be profitable. He added that the city would see an eventual benefit in higher property taxes as the card room becomes more valuable.
If the city council doesn’t bend to his will, Flynt vows to devote his energies to unseating in the next election. Considering that he’s already rescued one failed card room (the Hustler Casino was previously the El Dorado Club), the man would seem to deserve some consideration from the powers that be.
* Cleveland is running short of money to stage the Republican National Convention, with both Pepsi and Coca-Cola have pulled their sponsorships, among many others. But rather than going cap in hand to hometown casino magnate Dan Gilbert, the host committee is hitting up Sheldon Adelson for $6 million. And why not? That’s walking-around money for Sheldon.
* Hard Rock Sioux City is doing so well that it’s already in expansion mode. The casino will add a wine bar, in response to customer demand (Iowa isn’t as provincial as you might think), a private gambling salon and 60 more slot machines. The remodeling is budgeted at $6.5 million.
* “We killed that bill in seven hours,” said Oklahoma Indian Gaming Association Director Sheila Morago of legislation that would have legalized daily fantasy sports in the Sooner State. Oklahoma tribes look upon DFS as a serious threat to their revenues. “It’s the gambling aspect that draws people in,” added Cherokee Indian Nation Assistant Attorney General Chrissi Nimmo, scoffing at the claims by DraftKings and FanDuel that it’s not Internet gambling. It’s not that the Cherokee are opposed to DFS per se: They want any legislative deal structured so that they get a cut of the action. As Nimmo said, “We want to be involved in them.” Morago brushed aside any notion of rescinding tribal-exclusivity fees in return for letting DFS operators into the state. No, it appears the tribes want the playing field to themselves, although their rhetoric doesn’t always track.
