
North nj-new Jersey casino expansion: State Senate President Steve Sweeney wants residents to vote regarding the problem in 2016 november.
North nj wants to offer Atlantic City a run for its money. And brand 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 a referendum on whether two new gambling enterprises should be built in the part that is north of state, over the water from brand New York City, breaking AC’s longstanding monopoly.
The bill proposes that the state-wide vote on the issue just take place 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 had been a factor that is major four Atlantic City casino closures in 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 the new areas will certainly damage the nj-new Jersey market.
Strategic Importance
But North Jersey’s proximity to Manhattan therefore the New York greater metropolitan area makes it a strategically beneficial location for casinos, which Sweeney believes would lure droves of gamblers across the Hudson.
‘The question of gaming outside of Atlantic City is certainly debated,’ Sweeney said. ‘ Now is the time for the voters to decide. Expanding gambling to North Jersey is the best way to revitalize a market that is very important towards the state’s economy to ensure we can compete with neighboring states, generate the revenue needed seriously to revive Atlantic City and contribute to economic growth.’
The bill would ensure that no casinos that are new be built within 75 miles of Atlantic City and that casinos into the north would pay a much higher tax on the gaming profits compared to eight % presently paid by Atlantic City casinos.
High Taxes
Intense Rock International therefore the Meadowlands Racetrack, which want to build a casino in East Rutherford, house to the brand New York Giants and New York Jets, have actually agreed to pay because much as 55 percent in taxes.
Forty-nine percent of the income tax revenue would then visit Atlantic City to pay for the inevitable loss of business, while another 49 percent would head to counties and municipalities, therefore the remaining two percent would gain New Jersey’s horse racing industry.
Opinions remain deeply divided regarding the issue, particularly with Atlantic City itself.
‘North Jersey casinos would be disastrous for our neighborhood economy, driving jobs and investment out of our area,’ said former mayor James Whelan on Twitter this week.
Current financial reports suggest that AC is bouncing back and that the city’s casino earnings were up 55.9 percent in Q3 this season. However, Moody’s Investment Analysts warned that this was much more likely a reflection for the casino that is recent, that have boosted revenues for those that remain. Moody’s said it expected further closures in the year ahead.
Sheldon Adelson Confirmed as Brand New Las Vegas Review-Journal Owner
That is The Boss? evidently, it’s now Sheldon Adelson, who has assumed control of this Las Vegas Review-Journal, Nevada’s newspaper that is largest. (Image: politico.com)
Sheldon Adelson has been unmasked while the new owner associated with Las Vegas Review-Journal, having been exposed by the newspaper that is very had anonymously purchased per week earlier.
As reported right here earlier in the day this week, LVRJ staff were puzzled and a little dismayed to learn last Thursday that the newspaper had been sold to a mystery owner for $140 million.
All they were told ended up being that a newly incorporated company, News + Media Capital Group, was now during the helm and they need to ask you can forget concerns.
‘They want one to focus on your jobs … do not concern yourself with who these are typically,’ was the pep talk offered by one Michael Schroeder, a News + Media Capital Group manager during the very first staff meeting underneath the brand new ownership.
And while Schroeder assured staff that their editorial independency would never be compromised by their new mystery owner, a front page story on the sale that evening was redacted at Schroeder’s request to get rid of recommendations to the proprietor’s anonymity.
Demands Transparency
It was not just LVRJ’s people who were alarmed, as other journalists began calling for transparency too, and the whole tale spread as speculation expanded. The sale of a newspaper to an owner or organization that refuses to be identified is unprecedented in media history as Esther Thorson, research director for the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism, told the Los Angeles Times.
Additionally, the premium price paid by the buyer suggested they were thinking about buying governmental clout, rather than considered financial investment, which made all of it the more important that their identity and affiliations be disclosed.
The fact that LVRJ is the dominant news socket in the early-voting swing state of Nevada suggested to a lot of that the buyer might be a rich conservative, and Adelson’s name began to be cited by speculative commentators.
Public Statement
Meanwhile, faced with a conundrum, RJ staff did what journalists that are good: they started digging for answers. Or as Schroeder had put it, they ‘focused on their jobs.’
Sources sooner or later 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 previous owner, New Media Investment Group.
‘He [Dumont] handles all the investments for your family,’ claimed A lvrj supply.
For all of the LVRJ staff knew, they could have been risking their jobs by printing the whole story, but it doesn’t look like the actual situation. Instead, the Adelson family produced formal announcement of these ownership of the newspaper just hours after the tale broke.
Meanwhile, whatever Adelson’s particular reason for getting their hands on the LVRJ, be it business or politics, their position at the helm might well sit uneasily with most journalists. Adelson currently has newspapers in Israel, but he is also had a tendency to sue journalists, independently, for libel into the past.
One such journalist was current LVRJ columnist John L. Smith, whose 8-year-old daughter ended up being enduring from brain cancer during the time of the litigation. His daughter ultimately survived, but Smith had been pushed into bankruptcy.
Adelson eventually consented to dismiss the instance with prejudice, after Smith’s attorney effectively argued that the case had been not about defamation, but about Adelson making an example of those that crossed him.
The suit was in response to a probing book that included information Adelson had considered defamatory, instead of any such thing Smith had written at the Review-Journal. It will likely be interesting to see how that relationship unfolds with this saga that is new.
RAWA Dead in the Water for 2015
Representative Jason Chaffetz, who introduced RAWA towards the 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 investing bill that would have seen it sail through Congress.
The bill proposes a ban that is federal all forms of online gambling with the exception of horseracing and fantasy recreations.
RAWA supporters had anticipated that they could tag the bill onto the must-pass Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016, a monstrous 2007-page piece of legislation that largely describes federal fiscal outlays between now as well as the end of 2016.
A decade ago in such a way, they hoped, RAWA would be passed into law with as little fuss as possible, much like the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was slipped onto the end of legislation designed to regulate port security.
It had been the tactic that is same in fact, used in 2014, when RAWA additionally missed the omnibus. Fortunately for America’s online gambling industry, it may have to wait a time that is long the next one to come along. Twelve months, to be precise.
And since RAWA in its current type is very unlikely to be accepted by both chambers, sneaking onto that bus without having a admission perhaps remains its most useful choice.
RAWA Flounders
The legislation is unpopular with many lawmakers as the Sheldon Adelson-backed bill smacks of business cronyism.
Meanwhile, most of the Republican mega-donor’s normal allies within the GOP decry it as an unconstitutional breach for 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 developed by Adelson.
A initiative that is recent drum up support to push RAWA on the line failed when Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster and Southern Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson exhorted fellow attorneys basic to countersign a letter cooking RAWA.
Just eight AG’s were willing to put their name to the initiative.
Controversially, one of those was Nevada AG Adam Laxalt, whose 2014 election campaign received funding from Adelson. Laxalt had been heavily criticized by Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval for his actions, and numerous felt he had betrayed the Silver State, which opted to legalize and regulate poker that is online late 2013.
Adelson Re-raise
Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), whom introduced RAWA to the home early on into the 12 months, fared no better at a recent house hearing associated with 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 is sufficient to trot every tired cliché of the anti-online gambling movement, with lazy references to terrorism, money-laundering and youngster corruption, except that it didn’t quite work out that way, therefore the arguments against regulation took a drubbing.
For RAWA, it appears, the chips are down.
Except Adelson has simply tossed in a massive reraise.
His purchase of the Las Vegas Review-Journal may provide him clout that is extra his bid to gain political capital and shape opinions on online gambling in the gaming capital of America.
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