|
|
 |
|
#1
04-07-2010, 01:20 AM
|
||||
|
||||
Mission accomplished, Mr. Brunetti
Hialeah will get it slots casino (which was the whole purpose of the "reopening" and the joke QH "meet"). Now you can quit teasing the gullible dopes who thought Hialeah would ever amount to anything other than a low-grade meet to keep a pari-mutuel license (which is the required hook for slots in Miami-Dade and Broward counties).
Meanwhile, it looks like TBD took a royal arseforking. Too bad, I like that place. http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/flo...679,full.story It's a safe bet now: Blackjack in Florida is here to stay. Breaking a long-running legislative and legal stalemate, Gov. Charlie Crist and state lawmakers announced a landmark, $1 billion deal Tuesday with the Seminole tribe that legalizes blackjack in Florida and cements the Sunshine State as a haven for casino gaming. The deals hands the Seminoles a five-year franchise to operate blackjack tables at five casinos, including the Hollywood and Tampa Hard Rock facilities. The Seminoles also get the exclusive rights to Vegas-style slots north of Broward, a key competitive advantage. The tribe's $1 billion guarantee– with annual payments reaching $234 million in 2015 – is unprecedented in tribal gambling compacts in the United States, state officials said. "This is a very reasonable deal for the state of Florida," said Rep. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, who led the negotiations with the tribe. "It cleans up and resolves a controversy that has been festering for two decades." Pari-mutuel facilities, another big player in Florida's $7 billion gambling industry, had a mixed reaction. The 27 tracks and jai-alai frontons scattered across the state would get no-limit poker games, lifting the current $5-a-hand restriction. The historic Hialeah Park can install slot machines. Another poker room could come to Palm Beach County. South Florida pari-mutuels also won a long-sought 15 percent tax cut on slots profits. The extra money will allow them to make building improvements, hire more workers and advertise more, executives said. "It's great for South Florida," said Marc Dunbar, lobbyist for Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach. "The tax break is huge. The poker is great. If you're outside South Florida, you're not so happy." Indeed, beyond Broward and Miami-Dade counties, pari-mutuels would be shut out of lucrative slots gambling. Those pari-mutuels, including the Palm Beach Kennel Club, would be eligible for 350 gambling machines per facility, but they'd be limited to electronic bingo or "historic instant racing" on TV monitors. The deal still requires a vote from the House and Senate in Tallahassee, which could come next week. Bipartisan approval is all but assured. The Seminole tribal council gathers in Hollywood on Wednesday to give its stamp of approval. Amid another difficult financial year for Florida, the agreement injects $435 million into next year's state budget, a windfall that could help limit or stave off cuts to public education and road building programs. The tribe has offered blackjack in Broward since 2008, under an agreement with Crist that the state Supreme Court later overturned. Ever since, the blackjack games have been mired in legal uncertainty. Just a few weeks ago, federal regulators were on the verge of shutting down the tables, which the tribe said would have cost around 3,000 jobs. Now, the tribe can begin securing Wall Street financing for expansion plans at its casinos, said Jim Allen, CEO of the Seminole Hard Rock franchise. High on the list: expanding the tribe's Coconut Creek casino and adding blackjack tables there. "We'll immediately start dusting off our plans for expansion and putting people to work," Allen said. The deal allows the tribe to operate blackjack and baccarat tables for five years, until 2015. After that, the Legislature has to create new rules – either extending the deal with the Seminoles, expanding casino gambling to new sites or shutting down table games altogether. The five-year expiration date could present a prime opportunity for Las Vegas gambling executives, who are making a push to build multibillion dollar casino resorts in Florida. They have a long lobbying effort ahead. The Seminole gambling deal, Galvano said, doesn't mean Florida is "breaking the barrier" into full-fledged casinos statewide. "If you think there's a lot controversy between the Seminoles and the pari-mutuels, wait until it's Vegas and the pari-mutuels," Galvano said. When final details are available, I'll post them. 
|
|
#2
04-07-2010, 01:38 AM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Re TBD:
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/st...ms-531295.html Excerpt: Palm Beach Kennel Club owner Pat Rooney Jr. was disappointed with the latest negotiations, however. He and pari-mutuel owners in Tampa Bay and elsewhere in the state had hoped lawmakers would allow them to operate video slot machines, or "slots-lite" to boost their revenue and compete with the nearby Seminole casinos. "Just from an economic standpoint, we're at a disadvantage with the product they have," said Rooney, who is running for state House. Rooney's lobbyists have been walking the Capitol halls for more than a year to drum up support for their issue. Rooney said he's at the mercy of the legislature. "Sometimes we agree and sometimes we disagree. On this one, obviously we feel like if we were given the opportunity to compete we could. They're essentially making the decision that they're not going to allow us to do that," he said. The Senate's head gambling negotiator Dennis Jones said lawmakers considered PBKC and the Tampa Bay tracks but left them out because "we didn't feel it was a big enough issue to take all the other positions and put them at risk." Rooney concluded with a statement regarding the Seminole compact and other deals that rang throughout the Capitol on Tuesday: "It is what it is." "We'll keep fighting. You can fight as long as you want. But at some point it is what it is," he said.
|
|
#3
04-07-2010, 01:58 AM
|
||||
|
||||
|
I never figured you for a Star Wars goon.
|
|
#5
04-07-2010, 02:33 AM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Quote:
Well, I've wondered for awhile now what Tector is, so I looked it up and the only thing I found that might be it was from Star Wars. Some kind of Destroyer class ship. Admittedly, I did not spend more than about two seconds on it, and like I said, I never figured you for one of those Star Wars goons. My bad.
|
|
#6
04-07-2010, 11:00 AM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Quote:
|
|
#7
04-07-2010, 11:16 AM
|
||||
|
||||
|
The DRF is clueless--they don't seem to understand that TBD got hosed:
http://www.drf.com/news/article/111975.html Industry News | Posted 4/7/2010, 10:27 amPrint Slots agreement benefits Florida tracks By Matt Hegarty Casinos at Florida's parimutuel facilities will receive a 30 percent tax break on slot revenues and Hialeah Park will be able to open a casino under an agreement reached by the legislature and the state's Seminole Indian tribe. The agreement, which gives the Seminoles the exclusive right to operate table games at its seven Florida casinos, will reduce the tax rate for slot machines at seven parimutuel facilities in Miami-Dade and Broward counties from 50 percent to 35 percent, beginning July 1. The legislation will benefit Churchill Downs Inc.'s Calder Race Course, in Miami-Dade, and Magna Entertainment's Gulfstream Park, in Broward County. In addition, the agreement will allow Hialeah Park to open a slot-machine casino. Hialeah Park reopened late last year under a Quarter Horse racing license in order to fulfill a requirement that the track hold live race meets for two consecutive years in order to qualify for a casino license. The agreement will also allow all 19 parimutuel facilities in the state, including Tampa Bay Downs, to install up to 350 electronic gambling machines that allow players to gamble on bingo-style games or that use horse races that have already been run to generate numbers that determine payouts. Racetracks will also be able to keep their poker rooms open for 24 hours. Legislative leaders and the Seminole tribe have been attempting to negotiate a new gambling compact for three years. Under the compact, the Seminoles have guaranteed payments to the state of at least $1 billion over the next five years, and 10 percent of its net revenue on table games for 15 years after the initial five-year period ends. Florida is trying to close a $3.2 billion budget deficit. Florida's parimutuel facilities lobbied for the tax-rate cut and expanded hours under the contention that the Seminoles exclusive right to operate table games would put them at a competitive disadvantage. Yeah, TBD got the same things every pari-mutuel in Florida got--loosened restrictions on poker, and some dumb machines that even most slots idiots won't play (I know--my mom is one). Dog tracks in Jax or Pensacola got that, too. But those pari-mutuels don't have a Seminole Hard rock casino a few miles away, with Vegas slots AND blackjack--TBD does. And it got nothing to show for it. The Tampa operation is hugely important to the Seminoles because it has NO slots competition: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/st...ms-531295.html The lynchpin of the deal is the five-year agreement with the Seminoles giving them the exclusive rights to run banked card games, including blackjack, at five of their seven facilities, including their lucrative Tampa Hard Rock casino that brings in at least half of all the tribe's Florida gambling revenue, according to Galvano. Most important for the tribe is the prohibition against any of the state's pari-mutuels outside of Broward and Miami-Dade counties to run the card games. "When the tribe is committing this type of money, it's important to know the scope of gaming that we're dealing with and what kind of competition or exclusivity you have," said Jim Allen, chief of the tribe's gambling operations. The third time could be the charm for the Seminoles' gambling agreement — lawmakers twice before rejected compacts struck between the tribe and Crist. Galvano had steadfastly refused to allow the tribe to operate the banked card games, although the Seminoles began running them without authorization from the state for at least a year. Federal authorities had repeatedly threatened to intervene and make up their own rules for the games if the state and the tribe did not come to an agreement. The latest arrangement, which Crist is expected to sign as soon as Wednesday, gives the Seminoles five years to ramp up operations while the state considers opening the doors to the European and Las Vegas-based casinos that have come courting. So, GP and CRC--who DO compete with the Indians on slots--get about a 30% reduction in their slots taxes, and in 5 years they will almost certainly get blackjack. TBD, suffering from the Seminoles directly, gets the same treatment as some stupid dog track in Hicksville. It is a major screwing. I hope it gets addressed in 5 years, but right now they've been hosed.
|
Linear Mode
