Casinos? Not if we can’t properly handle the Lottery
I’m actually for casinos coming to Georgia and I believe in the next year or two, we will see some sort of legislation passed to bring casinos to Georgia, but I doubt it will be anything I can support.
My problem is how the state will meddle in the industry and the manage the funds…poorly.
All we have to do is look to the Georgia Lottery Corporation, a much simpler practice, and the most recent audit to see what we’re in for. Lawmakers requested an audit of FY 2016 practices and here are just a few of the issues found:
- The biggest expenditure for the agency is actually to contractors who run the games, like Scientific Games and International Game Technology. The auditors have said the agency needs to bid contracts out instead of continually renewing the contracts with the same companies without considering other prices and entities.
- Some contracts have gone 22 years without rebidding.
- One contract with IGT was $48.4 million for one year. Even consideration of bids on the basis of sheer cost would make more sense than doing nothing.
- The GLC spends more money advertising outside of Georgia than inside of Georgia.
- $700,000 in bonuses were awarded to employees of the GLC in FY 2016 alone despite the fact that lawmakers enacted a law in 2011 that limited bonuses (part of the HOPE scholarship changes)
- The way certain prizes are issued, the GLC isn’t even able to determine if there is a return on investment for having the game in place
- For example: Free ticket prizes would need to generate approximately $82 million in additional sales to cover the additional costs of awarding free tickets as a prize.
- The Lottery hasn’t hit the 35% mark for sales for state education in years.
I don’t know about you, but I’m not really interested in more of the same. There may be excuses for some of the issues, but it’s much like the DOT and the Transportation Tax legislation in 2015: Get your ducks in a row before you ask people to trust you with something else.
Shouldn’t we fix the problems we have currently before adding more to the system?
See the entire audit yourself, which is online on the Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts website.
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Jessica Szilagyi
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You got that right legislators can’t manage private business but Indian nations know how to. And for sure the money can’t go to our edu-cracy, roads maybe.
From Forbes article on their casinos:
“And for the Seminole people? Today every man, woman and child in the tribe receives biweekly dividend payments totaling about $128,000.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/laurengensler/2016/10/19/seminole-tribe-florida-hard-rock-cafe/#32acc7b938a1
If it ends up being with a referendum, get ready for the ad war to end all ad wars. Back in 2012 I was living in DC. You had Virginia next door as a swing state with a competitive Senate race, so you’d think the first thing you see on TV would be the gobs of ads for that. And there were. But by far the most common thing you got was ads for Maryland’s Casino Gaming Referendum: All the WV and NJ Casinos trying to protect their Maryland customers going against the developers wanting to build new gaming palaces in Baltimore. Former Redskins linebacker (hired to be the spokesman for the MD Casinos) was on my TV more than Obama, Romney, Kaine and George Allen combined.
Hutchinson Island is begging for a casino. Knowing Georgia and its pols, we will get one when enough palms are greased.
The private developers who want to lease the land from the county (which includes a huge tax credit from them) and adjacent to the trade and convention center, golf course, and speedway (all which the County owns) not to mention the additional hotel space (AKA hotel room taxes) being collected by Chatham County all going to them instead of the City of Savannah – are begging for a casino on Hutchison Island.
You’re actually making the case for casinos.
I was in college when the Georgia Lottery was proposed/approved, so I don’t have a blog post to link back to my thoughts then. But my memory was this: If we’re going to amend the constitution to legalize gambling, why are we then going to give the state a monopoly to run it?
Casinos are run by private enterprise (and are yet heavily regulated), create private sector jobs, and significantly more jobs than GLC. Most of the issues you discuss above are about rebidding of contracts. With the casinos, there will be an RFP process to grant licenses. After that, they’ll be heavily regulated but will thrive or fail based on their own management. In the process, they’ll seek no economic development incentives, but instead will pay a dedicated tax on revenues for a cost-free new revenue stream to the state.
In short, casino gaming offers everything that the lottery doesn’t.
Personally, I think Ga Lottery Corp is better managed than most similar lottery operations I’m familiar with. Some of the excesses that came from the original director (in order to lure her away from Florida and her successful startup there) have since been corrected. Those bonuses are a lot less than they used to be, and below surrounding states with lotteries that are increasing revenues.
That said, any government franchised enterprise like GA Lottery Corp deserves ongoing oversight and scrutiny and oversight.
Before getting tied up in secondary debates and personally having no big issue with casinos, the deal breaker is funds for “education” and its financially sinking retirement programs.
You do notice that nothing in this post is about funds going to education, nor is my response, correct?
correct….an unmentionable given or has something changed ?
the only sure thing abt lotteries and casinos: the house always wins. in this analogy, the house is a rental from the state, to the private enterprises. which agency will be charged with negotiating and drafting the lease?
Please use proper punctuation when posting. You are not sending a text.
Thanks.
Why not just build a bullet train from ATL to Biloxi?
Because that would cost taxpayers a few billion dollars and when you get off that train, you’re in Mississippi.
The plan on the table has private sector investment of over $2 Billion and a new revenue stream given to taxpayers.
Yeah, you won’t see many of those issues go away with a casino–certainly not the out of state advertising spend.
And you have to spend a ton running any gambling to prevent fraud–expect more of that with a casino.
The 700K is supposed to be a boogeyman because government employees are getting bonuses?
Also the casinos you are thinking of are not the ones we’d be getting. We’re getting video poker and keno halls.
If a government is ever to make a case for the wellbeing of its citizens, sordid bottom-sucking enterprises to bankrupt the poor are not things to consider, and these casinos fit that description to a t.
And I’m speaking as a gambler who loves casinos.
This reply is 100% incorrect. You’re still in the Robb Pitts sells Underground plan of the last decade.
What is on the table is a “destination resort casino” similar to what MGM built in National Harbor, with multiple companies setting up to bid for that license. Other casinos around the state would be closer to say, a Harrah’s New Orleans.
Nothing in the current proposal is about limited video style gaming. Nothing.
How about we have real casinos and then revoke the right of title and payday lenders to do business in the State of Georgia? THAT will do a hell of a lot more to stop bankrupting the poor and economically marginal citizens of our state.
As a gambler who loves casinos,
my bar is set at the Beau Rivage in Biloxi. Build me one of those. If it’s anything less, I’m not interested.
Bonus points if we can get a legal sportsbook here in the next 5 years.
My suggestion is a three member board appointed by the legislature to regulate casinos in Georgia. Casinos should not be placed under Ga. Lottery Corp control.
I have yet to hear a logical argument against casino gaming in Ga. The old ” but look at Atlantic City” argument does not work. Georgia is not Atlantic City. Other arguments are equally ridiculous.
And the chances it passes this year? Better than last year but that ain’t saying much.
I remember Kasim Reed’s brilliant statement: “I believe Las Vegas is in Las Vegas for a reason.”
Isn’t Atlanta in Atlanta for a reason?
Again, in a state which allows predatory lending, these clowns dare to talk about the casino business preying on economically marginal citizens? Get real.
It’s like allowing whore-houses but balking at strip clubs.
I can understand some of the contract issues where you are locked in using a vendor’s turnkey solutions to sell lotto tickets. I can understand that a game needs to pay off enough to keep the gullible interested. I can’t understand the advertising levels and the amount spent for the most insipid content of said advertising I’ve ever witnessed. Is there any study showing what the ROI for lottery advertising may be?
That being said the casinos vs. lottery thing is really apples and oranges. I don’t see casinos as a panacea to anything. I think with the proper oversight their presence in Georgia would have more benefits than detriments to Georgians.