North Nj Casino Expansion Right Back on State’s Agenda

North nj-new Jersey casino expansion: State Senate President Steve Sweeney wants residents to vote on the issue in 2016 november.
North nj wants to offer Atlantic City a run for its money. And New Jerseyans may get the right yet to vote for casino expansion beyond the Boardwalk.
State Senate President Steve Sweeney has reintroduced legislation calling for the referendum on whether two brand new gambling enterprises should be built in the north part of the state, across the water from brand New York City, breaking AC’s longstanding monopoly.
The bill proposes that a vote that is state-wide the issue just take destination in November 2016.
The question of North Jersey casino expansion is muted before. Atlantic City has suffered from the legalization of casino gaming within abutting states, and increased competition was a major factor in four Atlantic City casino closures into the last two years.
Pennsylvania legalized casino gaming in 2007, and recently overtook its neighbor in gaming revenue. Meanwhile, New York State and Massachusetts have both opted to license their first casinos and the emergence of those new markets will certainly damage the nj-new Jersey market.
Strategic Importance
But North Jersey’s proximity to Manhattan plus the New York greater metropolitan area makes it a strategically advantageous location for casinos, which Sweeney believes would lure droves of gamblers across the Hudson.
‘The question of gaming outside of Atlantic City has long been debated,’ Sweeney said. ‘ Now may be the time for the voters to decide. Expanding gambling to North Jersey is the way that is best to revitalize a market that is very important to your state’s economy so that we can compete with neighboring states, generate the revenue needed to revive Atlantic City and contribute to economic growth.’
The bill would guarantee that no new casinos could be built within 75 miles of Atlantic City and that gambling enterprises in the north would pay a much higher tax on their gaming profits than the eight % currently paid by Atlantic City casinos.
High Taxes
Rough Rock International and the Meadowlands Racetrack, which want to build a casino in East Rutherford, house to the brand New York Giants and New York Jets, have agreed to pay as much as 55 percent in taxes.
Forty-nine percent of this tax revenue would then go to Atlantic City to compensate for the inevitable loss of business, while another 49 percent would go to counties and municipalities, as well as the remaining two percent would benefit New Jersey’s horse industry that is racing.
Opinions remain deeply divided regarding the presssing issue, particularly with Atlantic City itself.
‘North Jersey casinos would be disastrous for our regional economy, driving jobs and investment out of our region,’ stated mayor that is former Whelan on Twitter this week.
Current financial reports suggest that AC is bouncing back and that the town’s casino earnings were up 55.9 per cent in Q3 this year. However, Moody’s Investment Analysts warned that this was much more likely a reflection of this casino that is recent, that have boosted revenues for those that stay. Moody’s said it expected further closures in the year that is coming.
Sheldon Adelson Confirmed as New Las Vegas Review-Journal Owner
Who’s The Boss? evidently, it’s now Sheldon Adelson, who has assumed control associated with vegas Review-Journal, Nevada’s newspaper that is largest. (Image: politico.com)
Sheldon Adelson has been unmasked once the new owner of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, having been exposed by the very newspaper he had anonymously purchased per week earlier.
As reported right here early in the day this week, LVRJ staff had been puzzled and a little dismayed to understand Thursday that is last that newspaper had been sold up to a mystery owner for $140 million.
All they certainly were told was that a newly incorporated company, Information + Media Capital Group, was now at the helm and they should ask you can forget questions.
‘They want you to definitely consider your jobs … don’t worry about who they’re,’ was the pep talk offered by one Michael Schroeder, a News + Media Capital Group supervisor during the very first staff conference beneath the brand new ownership.
And while Schroeder assured staff that their editorial self-reliance would never be compromised by their new mystery owner, a page that is front on the sale that evening was redacted at Schroeder’s request to eliminate references towards the proprietor’s anonymity.
Requires Transparency
It wasn’t just LVRJ’s people who had been alarmed, as other journalists began calling for transparency too, and the whole story spread as speculation grew. As Esther Thorson, research director for the Reynolds Journalism Institute during the Missouri School of Journalism, told the Los Angeles instances, the purchase of a newspaper to an owner or organization that refuses to be identified is unprecedented in media history.
Moreover, the premium price paid by the buyer suggested they were interested in buying clout that is political rather than considered financial investment, which made all of it the more important that their identification and affiliations be disclosed.
The fact that LVRJ is the dominant media outlet in the early-voting swing state of Nevada suggested to a lot of that the buyer might be a wealthy conservative, and Adelson’s name began to be cited by speculative commentators.
Public Statement
Meanwhile, confronted with a conundrum, RJ staff did what journalists that are good: they began digging for answers. Or as Schroeder had put it, they ‘focused on their jobs.’
Sources ultimately revealed that Patrick Dumont, Adelson’s son-in-law and senior vice president of finance and strategy at Las Vegas Sands Corporation, had brokered the deal between News + Media Capital Group and its own former owner, New Media Investment Group.
‘He [Dumont] handles all the investments for the family,’ claimed A lvrj source.
For most of the LVRJ staff knew, they could have been risking their jobs by printing the whole tale, but that does not be seemingly the scenario. Instead, the Adelson family produced formal statement of these ownership of the newspaper just hours after the story broke.
Meanwhile, whatever Adelson’s specific reason for getting his arms regarding the LVRJ, be it business or politics, his position at the helm might well sit uneasily with most journalists. Adelson already owns newspapers in Israel, but he’s also had a tendency to sue journalists, individually, for libel in the past.
One journalist that is such current LVRJ columnist John L. Smith, whoever 8-year-old daughter was putting up with from mind cancer at that time of the litigation. His daughter ultimately survived, but Smith had been pushed into bankruptcy.
Adelson eventually agreed to dismiss the case with prejudice, after Smith’s attorney successfully argued that the case ended up being not about defamation, but about Adelson making an exemplory case of those that crossed him.
The suit was in reaction to a probing book that included information Adelson had considered defamatory, in the place of any such thing Smith had written at the Review-Journal. It is interesting to see how that relationship unfolds with this particular new saga.
RAWA Dead within the Water for 2015
Representative Jason Chaffetz, who introduced RAWA to your House and floundered during a recently available congressional hearing on online gaming. (Image: nbcnews.com)
The Restoration of America’s Wire Act (RAWA) has unsuccessful to connect itself to an omnibus spending bill that would have seen it sail through Congress.
The bill proposes a ban that is federal all types of online gambling with the exception of horseracing and fantasy activities.
RAWA supporters had anticipated that they could tag the bill onto the must-pass Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016, a monstrous 2007-page little bit of legislation that largely outlines federal fiscal outlays between now as well as the end of 2016.
In such a way, they hoped, RAWA would be passed into legislation with only a small amount fuss as possible, much such as the Unlawful Web Gambling Enforcement Act had been slipped onto the end of legislation designed to regulate slot protection a decade ago.
It had been the same tactic, in fact, used in 2014, when RAWA also missed the omnibus. Fortunately for America’s online gambling industry, it may have to wait a time that is long the next one to show up. 12 months, to be precise.
And since RAWA in its current form is very unlikely to be accepted by both chambers, sneaking onto that bus without having a solution perhaps remains its best option.
RAWA Flounders
The legislation is unpopular with many lawmakers because the Sheldon Adelson-backed bill smacks of corporate cronyism.
Meanwhile, most of the Republican mega-donor’s natural allies into the GOP decry it as an unconstitutional breach regarding the Tenth Amendment that seeks to stymie states’ rights, while Democrats who might normally disapprove of online gambling are loathe to install by themselves to a policy produced by Adelson.
A recent initiative to drum up support to push RAWA throughout the line failed when Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster and South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson exhorted fellow attorneys general to countersign a letter baking RAWA.
Just eight AG’s were ready to place their name to the initiative.
Controversially, one of those was Nevada AG Adam Laxalt, whose 2014 election campaign received funding from Adelson. Laxalt was heavily criticized by Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval for his actions, and many felt he had betrayed the Silver State, which opted to legalize and control poker that is online belated 2013.
Adelson Re-raise
Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), whom introduced RAWA to the home early within the year, fared no better at a recent house hearing regarding the legislation, which he himself chaired, aided by the somewhat charged title: ‘A Casino in Every Smartphone: Law Enforcement Implications.’
Chaffetz had presumably hoped it will be sufficient to trot every cliché that is tired of the anti-online gambling movement, with lazy references to terrorism, money-laundering and child corruption, except it didn’t quite work out that way, and also the arguments against regulation took a drubbing.
For RAWA, it appears, the chips are down.
Except Adelson has just tossed in a reraise that is massive.
His purchase of the nevada Review-Journal may offer him extra clout in their bid to get political capital and shape viewpoints on online gambling in the gaming money of America.
