
Atlantic City just got hit by another storm recently; this one, financial. (Image source: LarryRivera.com)
Poor Atlantic City.
It gets battered by hurricanes, has its profits siphoned off by ever-increasing competition from surrounding states like Pennsylvania and Maryland, and has seen a seven-year continuous drop in gaming revenues from its 12 land casinos overall. Finally, it has Web casinos willing to introduce on November 26th, and things are searching for from the revenue stream viewpoint.
But then it gets another smack into the face from the tax man.
Tax Assessment Reversal for Borgata
Just What proved to be a victory that is huge MGM Resorts International and Boyd Gaming was not so much for the already faltering coffers of Atlantic City; the two video gaming behemoths got a 61 per cent reduction in property fees on their jointly owned Borgata Hotel and Casino which also happens to be one of the less miserable profit disasters in city and now AC has to return pre-paid taxation slotsforfun-ca.com monies to the two companies.
They can blame it on the Tax Court of New Jersey, which reassessed the casino that is top-grossing the Garden State at $870 million, a huge drop from its 2010 assessment of $2.26 billion. Without doubt there ended up being champagne that is celebratory the MGM and Boyd Gaming conference rooms over that choice. But Atlantic City leaders needed to be putting their fists through some walls, once the thing that is last needed had been to have to complete a huge payback if they already are on financial thin ice as well as in risk of financial hypothermia.
‘ This is a blow that is devastating Atlantic City,’ income tax attorney A. Paul Genato told Bloomberg News via email. The expert that is financial some $48.8 million is currently owed to MGM and Boyd for the tax years of 2009 and 2010.
That is a lot of potato chips.
Show Me the Money
The larger concern now facing the struggling city is how the heck they are going to make this payback happen.
Asked by Bloomberg in regards to the tax action, AC’s manager of revenue and taxation Michael Stinson cut to the chase: ‘We certainly don’t have $50 million sitting in the bank.’
With that truth staring the beleaguered metropolis into the face, they’ve been doing the same you or I would do in this scenario: at minimum purchasing some time, if nothing else, with an appeal that is anticipated. But wait, there is more misery in the future; Borgata’s more recent 2011 and 2012 assessments have additionally been challenged by MGM and Boyd, and while no judgments have actually been rendered there as yet, this may be the blow that offers Atlantic City a true technical knockout if it goes the way of the past years’ choices.
If those decisions do go MGM and Boyd’s method, at what point is Atlantic City likely to be in danger of becoming the next Detroit? MGM and Boyd might need to reassess the possibility that they’ll win the battle(s), but lose the war, in the event that whole burg ends up drowning in its own offal that is financial.
Atlantic City’s casino revenues dropped nearly 13 % in September, compared to the same time period in 2012; all 12 regarding the town’s casinos combined made a fairly meager gambling industry revenue of $240.2 million for the month this 12 months.
Just 6 Months In, Nevada Gaming Commission Considers Online Changes
The Gaming Control Board is reviewing and revising after six months of online poker in Nevada. a bit that is little.
It’s only been half a year since online poker became legal in Nevada, and the Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB) is moving slowly regarding expansion of all kinds beyond the popular card game. Having said that, the Board is looking at some possible changes that are regulatory.
‘We’re only 6 months into poker,’ said NGCB Chairman A.G. Burnett. ‘For now, we should prove out poker first.’
Slow But Steady Wins the Battle
And also with poker, the Board is perhaps not anything that is rushing. With only two legal sites up so far Station Casinos-owned UltimatePoker.com and Caesars Entertainment Corp.’s WSOP.com brand the Board is perhaps not likely to approve any more web sites until the prevailing sites’ technology is reviewed and examined by independent evaluating laboratories, also the Control Board’s own in-house lab. (Obama, simply take note: this is how you are doing it.)
‘Nevada is poker only,’ reiterated Burnett. ‘That was the intent that is legislative the start and the board has no plans doing anything otherwise.’
Exactly What the Board is evaluating in terms of regulatory tuneups revolve around additional technical needs for online poker, and also some language corrections to match up with statutory changes that went into effect via Assembly Bill 114 during the latest session that is legislative.
Nearly Any Such Thing Goes, In Theory
All that is technically prohibited in the bill is competition and sports book wagering online; but Assembly Majority Leader William Horne, (D-Las Vegas), who sponsored the legislation, says he concurs with Nevada’s regulators about going slowly and cautiously beyond poker, if at all.
‘I believe our intent through the outcome ended up being to take conservative steps,’ Horne said of SB 114. ‘Nothing prohibits [the control board] from going beyond poker and we want our boards that are regulatory make that choice. I think we’re using wise steps.’
Another important topic the Board is reviewing is the issue of interstate compacts for online poker, something that is probably likely to be critical for Internet gaming to thrive in the Silver State over the long haul. By having a population of nearly 2,759,000 (compared to soon-to-be-competitor New Jersey’s 9 million), Nevada needs other states in order to enter their online games legally so that you can remain afloat in what will be a market that is increasingly competitive the coming years. It’s expected that the Board will be Governor that is asking Brian to push forward with this request, and there’s absolutely no reason to expect he won’t comply.
An additional couple of days, Delaware will join Nevada with online gaming, unfurling poker plus a casino that is few to begin with when they launch on Halloween. Then on November 26th, nj-new Jersey will bring their Web casinos into the online universe with a complete choice of classic casino games, including poker, needless to say.
Ultimately, it could make more sense for more centralized regional servers to handle entire chapters of the U.S., if state and legislation that is federal. At a current regulatory meeting in Philadelphia, New Jersey State Assemblyman John Amodeo (R) discussed a possible new bill that allows on the web gaming hardware and computer software become situated outside of actual Atlantic City land gambling enterprises ( as they are now required to be), opening the floodgates to a more nationwide on line gaming scenario.
Talking to the Press of Atlantic City, Amodeo suggested that ‘ultimately, we could see Las Vegas handle everything west of the Mississippi, and Atlantic City could handle everything east of the Mississippi.’
Sporting Potential UK CEO Says Footballers Gambling with Payday Loans
The CEO of Sporting Chance, a business that can help professional athletes with gambling issues, says you’d be amazed where they get their money that is betting from.
No doubt you’ve seen the ads for payday loans on television or on a billboard those solutions that will instantly cash your paycheck as a loan, only asking for the insanely high interest price in return. You may have even used one in a pinch. But you’ve probably never considered the fact a professional athlete might just take benefit of this service to help place a bet or two on the side.
Yet that’s what some UK footballers are doing to finance their gambling habits, in accordance with Colin Bland, the CEO of displaying Chance a charity that can help athletes deal with addiction. Based on the organization, about 70 percent of its referrals are related to gambling, and soccer that is many end up in a recurring pattern where they should utilize payday loans to continue betting.
Vicious Circle
‘It’s not unusual to really have a player in a cycle of payday loans and gambling,’ Bland told BBC Radio 5. ‘We are working together with a lot more current football players. We have had players who have got caught up within the scenario of taking away loans that are payday put bets. We have had some of those over the last couple of years, so the vicious circle continues.’
This might sound odd to your working that is average, who wonders how a professional athlete could squander vast amounts a year on gambling. But according to Bland, that can actually be part of the issue. At least one athlete has told him that the issue was that there’s always plenty of money coming into his pouches, meaning that it’s always available and ready to wager on a moment’s notice.
‘we have worked with players who have lost up to £7 million ($11.3 million) in 36 months in gambling,’ Bland stated. ‘ But the particular young man I’m talking about said ‘it’s the quantity of bets I’m placing. I’m placing 50 bets a day…it’s impacting my life, it’s affecting my performance…it’s affecting what sort of father i will be.”
Athletes Are Bettors
And while that might seem like an incident that’s out of the norm, it’s no key that athletes around the globe love placing bets that are big. And some soccer that is former in the UK have fessed up to losing plenty of cash throughout their jobs.
For example, Stoke City winger Matthew Etherington publicly admitted to having a gambling problem earlier in his career. In accordance with him, he lost about £1.5 million ($2.4 million) wagering on poker, horse racing, and dog racing during his career. And even though he relied on loan sharks to fulfill his gambling requirements, that’s only because that is what was most available to him.
‘ I don’t think the payday loans were about whenever I was gambling, otherwise I may possibly be one of [the players that turned to them] myself,’ Etherington has said.
‘It just snowballed to where I happened to be often spending my month’s wages and then lending money down loan sharks,’ he said about his gambling addiction.
The gambling habits of high-profile soccer players have become a hot topic in the UK in current months. Rangers midfielder Ian Black was suspended for 10 matches previously this year for gambling on at least 160 matches over the last seven years, while Crystal Palace striker Cameron Jerome faced a £50,000 ($80,000) fine for breaking Football Association rules related to gambling.
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