I look at gambling as a relatively painless way for a state to increase revenue. A sort of voluntary tax, if you will. Better that than raising taxes on the general population.
I doubt it will do much for racing. They’re not even going to have the slots at the tracks. A small percentage is supposed to go to racing for bigger purses. Horse racing used to be the biggest spectator sport in the country but it never will be again.
I’m not opposed to having slots here though. As for where the money will actually end up, well that’s another question entirely.
According to the article in the Washington Post, the horse racing tracks are dead or dying in Maryland. How are they going to attract customers if they are closed? I’ve lived in this area for many years, and have never been to a Maryland track. If they were so desperate for business, why didn’t they advertise and invite people to the track? The only sign of their presence seemed to be periodic traffic jams in Laurel. I’ve noticed that tracks in other states are heavily advertised and promoted, like they are actually interested in attracting new customers. Maybe they should sell the tracks to someone who knows how to run a business instead of expecting a taxpayer funded bailout.
I’m almost positive that someone’s pulling numbers out of their asses now. Unless my math is way off that is. The people who want this, and this includes the Governor as well, says we’ll get 600 million for schools. The ballot only allows for 15000 machines.
If I did my math right that means every machine will have to pull $4.50 an hour 24/7/365. And that’s just to pay for the schools. That means if the schools get 43% each slot will have to bring in over $10 an hour. I just don’t believe that they will get such numbers.
Honestly I don’t care about horse racing one bit. If it fails then it fails. If it was so popular then they would have more large stakes races, yet I only ever hear about one. While I’ve been to the races a couple of times in West Virgina, I’ve never been in Maryland simply because they don’t put them on.
I know personally I’m voting against it.
I don’t see $10/hour as being particularly difficult to achieve, depending on the stakes of the machine. Even on penny slots, it’s pretty easy to lose $20 in 30 minutes or less. I’d expect most of the machines would be considerably higher than penny slots…nickel, quarter, dollar…probably even some $5 machines, judging by what I’ve seen in Tunica. Hell, the “high stakes” room in Tunica has some $25 slots, I think. I can’t imagine playing at that level, but some people do.
I haven’t been following this issue since i moved away from Baltimore, but what happened to all those Democrats who opposed the slots when Ehrlich was governor? It seemed that there was constant criticism of Ehrlich from Democratic politicians, and constant gnashing of teeth about how slots would devastate the state’s low-income population. Is there any of that still going on? Or is this issue just one big partisan boondoggle, with everyone wanting a piece of the pie?
But if all these breeding farms are so great, why can’t they turn a profit? Why do they needs a big fat gift in the form of slots?
And while the Preakness does get huge crowds, it’s not going anywhere, no matter what happens to the rest of the horse-racing industry in Maryland. It’s significance as part of the Triple Crown is too great. It could continue, even if there were major changes to the rest of the Maryland industry.
The fact is that, apart from the Preakness, Pimlico is pretty much deserted the rest of the year. If horse racing is so great, if it’s so crucial to Maryland, why does hardly anyone in the state seem to care about it? The argument from the racing fraternity seems to be: “Well, sure, no-one comes to see horse racing, but if you let us have slots we’ll get bigger crowds.” That might be true, but it’s hardly a convincing argument for the importance of horse racing.
There are some reasonably good cases to be made for slots, but the “save horse racing” argument was about the least convincing argument i ever heard in favor of them.
On a more general note, i agree with don’t ask’s assessment of slots. The introduction of slots into pubs in Sydney virtually killed the city’s pub culture, as owners rushed to throw out tables and chairs and replace them with slot machines. You couldn’t step into a pub in the inner west without being assaulted by the infernal jingling and ringing of the pokies, and the pub as a place for a quiet relaxing drink seemed to be on the verge of extinction.
When i was last in Sydney, a few months ago, it seemed to me that many pubs were recovering, and that pokies were declining. My guess is that at least some of this was due to the gentrification of the city; the sort of young professional people and hipster types who move into the gentrifying areas want a place to drink, and aren’t interested in pouring their money into poker machines. Of course, this also meant that as the pubs reverted to drinking places, they also gentrified; the sub-$10 pub lunch seems to be a thing of the past, and the menu changes reflect the new clientele. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing, but it’s certainly different from how it used to be.
Not necessarily. The owner of Pimlico (Frank Stronach) has talked about closing Pimlico and moving the Preakness to, say, California. And Stronach lives in Canada, so he is not that interested in keeping the Preakness in MD.
The breeding farms are doing OK, but that would likely change if the MD tracks closed and there was no place to run Maryland-breds (every state except Kentucky has a program to support their statebreds by holding some races restricted to horses bred in that state.)
I didn’t know that, but it doesn’t really change my thoughts on the matter because:
a) Baltimore has bigger problems than whether or not it can keep the Preakness.
and
b) the talk about moving the Preakness sounds like the same sort of talk you hear from baseball and football owners when a city won’t cough up for a new stadium - “If you can’t build us a new venue, we might have to move elsewhere.”
I saw another commercial tonight. It seems that though Marylanders only spend 400 million out of state, Maryland will bring in 660 million with 15,000 slots; I still find $10 an hour, every hour, for every machine, 24/7/365 crazy. If we don’t pass said bill then we will have to raise taxes by 700 million. So it starts out by losing 400 million, then we’ll bring in an extra 260 million, I can sort of see that, maybe, but if we don’t we’ll need an extra 40 million just to make up for it? I think not. They are trying to scare me and it’s not working.
Funny though that when we had a Republican governor no one wanted slots, now with a Democrat we need them.
[quote=“Edward_The_Head, post:24, topic:469782”]
If I did my math right that means every machine will have to pull $4.50 an hour 24/7/365. And that’s just to pay for the schools. That means if the schools get 43% each slot will have to bring in over $10 an hour. I just don’t believe that they will get such numbers.
[QUOTE]
I’m from Manitoba, Canada and, assuming that you are talking about VLTs (video Lottery Terminals) - computerised balckjack, poker, keno and slots - here is what I’ve seen that you may consider relevant.
When the VLTs first came in people went out to play them as a social thing for about three months until the novelty wore off. After that came the slot jockeys.
I’ve seen many times over a single person occupying two or three machines and feeding $20 bills into them each one after another. The typical user feeds $20 bills one after another into a single machine.
Most of the jockeys aren’t drinkers (so little revenue goes directly to the bar)
There are very few true casual players. Mostly the ones that play are junkies; some can afford it and some can’t. VLTs don’t just appear in the upper-end bars/lounges, they are ubiquitous. This has meant, amongst other things, an increase in panhandling.
Our province has become dependant on the money from these things and has enacted legislation SPECIFICALLY to allow people greater access to them. It used to be that bars could only be open for a maximum of 15 hours and could close no later than 2:00 am. Our premier and his government passed a bill allowing for 17 operating hours (allowing for 9:00am - 2:00am operation) just to allow for more access to VLTs.
If our education system has derived any benefit from the slots I’ve yet to see evidence of it.
Making an average of $10 for every hour of operation is not only doable but one “hot” machine could easily pay for tens of slow ones.
My mom and I enjoy slots. When slots were legal in Maryland she was a pretty degenerate gambler, but since slots were banned she has done pretty well.
A few weeks ago, we drove over to Charlestown Races & Slots in nearby West (by God!) Virgiinia. We played the penny slots. (I was up $11.00, no mean feat on the pennies). She went to the bathroom and reported someone in there was on the cell phone. “I can’t leave, I’m down $200 and have to get it back.”
Look, have you been to Charlestown? Huge casino that doesn’t seem to have a darn bit of positive impact on the town. Do we really need to encourage people to lose money they can’t afford to lose? Do we need to tax the poor?
The money will not go to education. (Well, that money will go to the schools, then we will cut the funds from the General Fund going to education.) Gambling did not help WV, it will not help MD.
The backers are simply lying to promote their own interests. Hell with them.
“each slot will have to bring in over $10 an hour. I just don’t believe that they will get such numbers.”
I guess you haven’t ever been to a Casino. $10 lasts about a minute. They’re all electronic now too you put your credit/debit card in them and buy x amount of turns.
I do know that slots can take a lot of money, except that they are only supposed to allow them in five locations. None of them are going to be open 24/7. Yes I can see them making tons of money but not every second of every day. I’ve been to Las Vegas, I’ve been to Atlantic City, I’ve been to Charles Town, and I’ve never seen even half of the machines being used at 6am. What happens when the race tracks are closed half the time? Even Charles Town is closed at least a few hours a day and a few days a year.
I also notice that they don’t put them where the more affluent places are. They’re not going to come to Montgomery county, the richest part of the state, nor Frederick County, which is on the border of West Virginia and how most people would get to Charles Town. They put them in Allegheny County, and there’s not much out there, and in Baltimore.
Sorry if it’s a bit of a poor post I’ve got the little one asking questions while I type.
Any news on how this one turned out?
It passed.