Anti-casino voters not at home among Dems

David makes a good point in his addendum over at BMG. Basically, that anti-gambling voters are not going to be interested in voting for any current or former Democrats running for governor unless they are pushed in that direction by an egregious Republican candidate...

• Cahill loves gambling and would station slot machines inside elementary schools if he thought he could get away with it.
• Deval Patrick "only" wants at least one resort casino in Mass.

Of course, the issue is that Republicans often present themselves as neolithics against marriage equality, any abortion, and basically on the losing side of mid-90s culture war issues. If Massachusetts Republicans can avoid that, then anti-gambling folks might give them a listen.

Now, living in a town that may end up hosting such a casino does tend to focus the mind greatly on gambling, and people distant to the issue may not realize how quickly it rises up the priority list for such a voter. I suspect that gambling may be an issue that is either nearly irrelevant to picking a candidate, or very relevant -- not in between. However, anyone who cares deeply about gambling is going to be hard-pressed to give Cahill or Patrick his/her trust on the matter.

If Mihos or Baker can minimize hot-button issues from the past (abortion, gay marriage) and collect those anti-gambling voters, that would be the foundation to a strong coalition. Mihos has come out against casinos, but favors slots at racing tracks, something that makes him a real player in my neighborhood of SE Mass. I would also note that Mihos has taken my advice and is labeling himself an "Independent Republican" for governor on his website.

In 2007, a poll found that about 1/3 of unenrolled voters and 1/3 of Democrats were against Deval's proposal. About 1/5 of those groups are strongly against the proposal. If Baker or Mihos can neutralize the hot-button issues while coming out strongly and smartly against gambling, they would be the natural candidate for that 20% of the electorate -- including people who may have been with Deval in 2006.

PS: Another nugget from the poll -- Martha Coakley had +66 net favorability among Democrats, +29 net favorability among unenrolled, and +9 favorability among Republicans. That would drop in any race, but I really have to believe this woman has a future in this state.

Mohegan Sun redefines bad economy as "bad luck"

Well, I'm not as ferocious on the workings of casinos as Ryan or Gladys, but I do have an interest in the whole industry, especially as it's looking to open a branch in my town.

So I certainly noticed this recent report, here by way of the Norwich (CT) Bulletin:

Gaming revenue was down between 5 and 25 percent across the board in April, May and June for the authority — which operates Mohegan Sun in Connecticut and a combined slot machine casino and harness racetrack in northeast Pennsylvania — compared to the same period in 2007.

Although players played $611.2 million at table games during the third quarter, up 6.4 percent, the casino kept about 11.6 percent, or 4.9 percent less, from players than it did last year. That drove revenue from table games down 25.4 percent from $100.9 million in third quarter 2007 to $75.3 million this year.

Now, why would Mohegan be losing so much money? The obvious explanations are systemic: perhaps wide availability of Internet gambling means fewer people going to casinos. Maybe the slowing economy means people have less money to piss away on bets after buying heating oil. Perhaps casino profits are down because people don't want to pay for the drive. Or are put off by the addictive nature of the activity. What we do now -- and I explain in detail below -- is that casino profit margins are closely tied to volume above all, and lower profits is almost lockstep with lower volume of bets placed.

When you have problems from the gambling industry from losses in Detroit and Atlantic City to a glut in Vegas, one might wonder if Mohegan Sun's losses are part of this trend. Perhaps a problem with the industry as a whole.

Nonsense, laughs Mohegan Sun. The problem is...bad luck.

Gamblers with seven-digit bankrolls took more away from Mohegan Sun table games than usual this spring, making for “an extremely long streak of bad luck” and an 89 percent drop in net income for the Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority, compared to the same period in 2007, Chief Executive Officer Mitchell Etess said Thursday.

“We didn’t win as much as we normally do,” Etess said, announcing the authority’s third quarter fiscal results. “The next thing you know, it adds up. “It was mathematics and that’s what happens.”

Unlike most people who go to casinos, I can do math, and I'm not intimidated by the word "mathematics". And the math says that this explanation stinks. Because the casino profit model demands such a large number of placed bets as to neutralize luck as a statistically significant concept.

---

Let's engage in a little example. Take the best bets in any casino: red/black in roulette, or player/banker in baccarat. You have a 47.37% chance of winning on the first case, and in baccarat your odds are a fantastic 49.47%. I'm using these two examples because they represent the worst-case scenario for casinos. In reality, more popular games such as slots have a much higher profit margin, but we'll exclude those.

This works out to a 1.58% average profit margin per bet. May not seems like much ...unless you realize that's higher than the standard profit margin of an item sale at a supermarket. And like a supermarket, casinos rely on thousands of iterations of this margin to pay for overhead (staff, facilities) and make a profit. Casinos won't make (or lose) much on any one bet...with lots of bets you can make money.

Say that 15,000 bets of $5 each are placed on these two games. If everything goes according to the odds, the casino would make a $2,370 profit. To actually lose money in this "worst case" scenario, you would need astoundingly bad luck: 475 more bets would have to go against you than the odds dictate. This has a 40% chance of happening. The odds grow longer as time goes on: there is a 1.6% chance of losing money at the tables this way in the course of a week. The chance of losing money at full tables for 3 months -- even when only the worst house odds are offered -- can only be expressed using scientific notation.

I realize that I haven't factored in overhead, but nor have I factored in poker, blackjack, and slots in this example. So frankly I'm exaggerating how bad things can get for a casino operating at high volume.

---

A 9-5 casino with 2 poker tables and 3 blackjack tables isn't going to make a profit: you need dozens of tables, lots of slots, and 24-hour access for all those tiny profits to accumulate enough to outweigh the overhead.
This high volume approach does two things: it gives casinos sufficient profit to cover their overhead, and it reduces the odds that a run of "bad luck" will strike to almost infinitesimal. For casinos, the more bets, the better. As you can imagine, with thousands of bets being passed, even the highest of rollers is going to get drowned out in the flow of dollars and dimes. Remember -- if you have 2000 high rollers, statistics dictate that several hundred will be losing money. This gives lie to the idea of "bad luck" -- even high rollers contribute a limited percentage of casino profits. If those high rollers have a good streak, it will barely move the needle against the retiree dollars flowing into Mohegan Sun's slots. There are just too many bets being made over three months for luck to factor in.

It can't be bad luck at the tables...there are too many tables. I don't care about the size of the bets. The problem isn't what's happening at the tables...the problem is that at too many tables, nothing is happening. Volume is the only explanation. Mohegan Sun just isn't getting the business for their model to make money.

Mohegan Sun's problem is that it has the bad luck to be part of a faltering industry. And this dishonesty isn't going to help them anytime soon.

Middleboro Casino: Still a Townie Favorite

Last week, Middleboro had its town elections, the latest barometer reading in citizens' feelings about the proposed Wampanoag casino in Middleboro.

This brings to four the number of times Middleborovians have weighed in on the casino question:

• At a 2007 summer town meeting, voters approved a proposed casino contract by balloting, margin of 2,387-1,335
  
• At the same meeting, voters rejected the general idea of hosting a casino by a show of hands (this seeming contradiction is discussed in the thread referenced above).
  
• In September of that year, an effort to recall Middleboro selectmen -- a campaign which quickly centered on the casino deal -- failed, going 0 for 3. Greg Stevens lost by 2 to 1 margin to incumbent Wayne Perkins, while Chair Marcia Brunelle slid into victory by a 1,424-1,303 margin.
  
• Last week, pro-casino candidates were re-elected and elected to the Board of Selectmen. Casino enthusiast/apologist Marcia Brunelle was re-elected. More significantly, the open seat on the board was filled by Mimi Duphily with 850 votes. Duphily is a nice lady, but also a casino apologist for the Wampanoag casino effort. She bested casino skeptic Greg Stevens, who received 692 votes.
  

As we see, there's a small but consistent majority of politically participating Middleboro residents favoring a casino. Currently, the federal and state governments are being asked to blight a region with an enormous complex based on a stable 55-45 majority in its host community and strong opposition in the larger region.

CORRECTION: Original stated that "do-anything casino advocate" Adam Bond had vacated the board of selectman. As a matter of fact, he remains on the board and was just elected chair. Adam Bond, however, remains a do-anything casino advocate. We regret any confusion.

Whoopsie! State reps "accidentally" vote the wrong way on casinos

I was performing some research in the course of writing up my excitement that Senator Robert Creedon was going to retire when I came across something odd.

According to the Globe's coverage of March 20th's vote on Deval's casino package, two representatives accidentally voted the wrong way. The two of them, Representatives Poirier and Ross meant to vote to essentially kill Deval's casino resorts, but ended up voting to keep it alive. (In the exact quote "Reps. Poirier and Ross indicated after the vote that they had both intended to vote 'yes' instead of 'no'") Two out of 152 votes were cast incorrectly. This leads to the following possibilities, as far as I can see:

1) On the most publicized and possibly most important vote of the legislative session, two of our educated professionals couldn't correctly cast a vote. Representatives Poirier and Ross pressed the wrong button at a moment when it mattered most. This is atypical for a state rep, and could raise pointed questions about the abilities of Reps. Poirier and Ross to do their jobs. If they can't press the right button, can they do the hard stuff? I mean, it's not as if they accidentally voted to declare February "National Orchid Awareness Month" or something...this was the BIG VOTE.

2) On average, state representative vote the wrong way 1% of the time, and nobody knows or cares. Shouldn't we?

3) The state reps support casinos, but at the same time are terrified of revenge from Speaker DiMasi. So they are trying to appease both sides by saying that they voted for casinos, but didn't mean it. They are dishonest.

4) The state reps do not support casinos, but felt some compunction to vote for them. Maybe they figured it was going down in flames, so they could get what they wanted while still making nice with Deval or the money people behind the idea. They are dishonest and possibly greedy.

Dishonesty or incompetence, those are your choices. What am I missing here?

Deval: My Obsession is Worth 5 Teachers

Apparently, Deval Patrick has time to play at being Massachusetts governor between high-profile visits to Washington, DC and serving as loyal Obama flunkie, speaking in whichever state has the next primary. Of course, "play at being Massachusetts governor" for Deval means "hustle casino money". After Sal DiMasi slapped him around like a puppy that went on the carpet on this issue, most people understand this phantom hope is dead.

Not Deval. He's pouring almost $190,000 that the state doesn't have into an immediate "study" on the economics of casino gambling. This will entail ignoring all the studies out there over an issue that is dead for the year. At best, we'll be looking at a study one year out of date that will change nobody's mind...much more likely, it will be put on a shelf somewhere.

$190,000. That's five well-qualified teachers. Or a few cops. Upgrading a stretch of road or other architecture. Real money, that's being pissed away because Deval has no ideas.

Thank goodness we have someone running the state who knows what they're doing -- keep up the good work, Sal!