Off-Topic

Yeah is there any chance of table games? Otherwise it is just going to be a bunch of senior citizens on ventilators and degenerate asian gamblers.

If I lived in Hanover I'd be against it. Increased traffic and probably a decrease in my home value.

Its some ballers in Arundel County, drove through Edgewater today.

Arundel Mills is already the worst place on earth. I can't even imagine it being worse than it is right now. It's like Bin Laden becoming a Duke fan.

Yeah, but that will be another 15 years. MD is so 3-4 years behind West Virginia and Delaware regarding gambling. It will never be a destination. I love that Ruth's Chris is now lumping itself in the same building as a Cheesecake Factory. The ghetto-fabulous white sneaker "thug-life" wannabe crowed at this place will be outstanding. I just don't understand who would drive to a glorified outlet mall to go to a "casino" where there are restaurants (because there are no other restaurants in the county) to play slots.

And yes, Vote Yes. It's an idiot tax. You don't pay it if you don't want to.

Isn't William Bowers from Hanover?

How would one construct a legal challenge against a state that sponsors a lotteries yet won't allow table games? There are no table games w/ worse odds than Mega Millions. Would one open up a casino, get busted, and then start the appeals process?

Just got a call from the no slots people. He went through this whole speech about Laurel racetrack being in AA county and we should put slots there in of a family friendly mall. I asked him that if I vote against question a doesn't that mean they can't put slots at the racetrack either to which he said "correct." At least he told the truth, but way to negate your entire point dummy.

well stated.

The entire anti-slots at the mall campaign against is based on a big lie that this is better suited at the race track.

This is not a mall or race track decision, it's a gambling in AA county or not decision.

But Maryland voters are used to being munipulated, so I still think this is a coin flip on election day.

Vote YES.

Just curious, have the gubernatorial candidates weighed in on this yet? I know it's a local zoning issue, but this is pretty big and definitely has state implications.

Interesting:

Penn National Gaming, the owner of the Hollywood Casino Perryville, said Thursday that it would consider selling the Cecil County facility so it could develop a slots parlor at Laurel Park in Anne Arundel County.

Executives at the Pennsylvania-based gaming company are counting on voters in Anne Arundel to defeat the Cordish Cos.' plans to build a casino at Arundel Mills in next month's referendum. They are also counting on Maryland to reopen the bidding process for the slots license there. The referendum asks voters whether a zoning bill passed by the County Council to allow the mall project should stand.

"The governor has made very clear that he believes that slots belong at Laurel, so that we are pretty confident that following a defeat of the effort to put the slots where they don't belong, that [the] state will move very swiftly to start a new process," Penn National's chairman and chief executive, Peter Carlino, said during a conference call with analysts to discuss the company's third-quarter earnings.

But the chairman of the location commission that awards slots licenses said Thursday that the Cordish Cos.' license would remain intact if the zoning were rejected at referendum. Donald Fry said the issue would revert to the county. The developer would have to go back to the County Council to seek new zoning permission, either for Arundel Mills or another site.

David S. Cordish, president of the Cordish Cos., has said that he prefers putting a casino at Arundel Mills and is dedicated to that venue, but that he would consider other options if the referendum failed.

Joe Weinberg, a vice president at the Cordish Cos., said in an e-mail that the referendum means "no zoning in Anne Arundel County for slots anywhere and the reality that Anne Arundel will never have slots.

"Contrary to Penn's fantasies, what the state wants is for its carefully thought-out decision to award the Anne Arundel license to Cordish at Arundel Mills to be implemented without further interference from out-of-state interests," Weinberg said.

Penn National, which co-owns Laurel Park racetrack with the Maryland Jockey Club, has been supporting a campaign against Cordish's plans for a $1 billion casino and entertainment complex.

State law does not allow a company to hold more than one slots license. Besides divesting itself of the Perryville casino, the facility's ownership or management could be restructured, said Eric Schippers, Penn National's senior vice president for public affairs. Any transfer of Perryville's license would require state approval.

If the license bidding process is reopened, the Jockey Club would be ready to file an application immediately while Penn National would address the license ownership issue, Schippers said.

"Both could move on swift parallel tracks," Schippers said.

Schippers said it would be "highly unlikely" for the County Council to approve another zoning measure for slots at Arundel Mills if voters defeated the referendum.

Laurel Park would also need zoning approval for a casino. Penn National executives said they were prepared to move immediately on its plans once it got permission.

"We would indeed be in the position to deliver on the jobs and revenue faster than Cordish,"

Schippers said. "Traffic studies have been done at Laurel, [and] there is already an existing grandstand to use to temporarily house the slot machines while we build out the permanent facility, given we have a proven track record at Perryville. At record time we developed the casino."

hanah.cho@baltsun.com

___________________________________________________

Hollywood Casino Perryville, Maryland's first slots parlor in decades, generated more than $2 million in revenue during its first four days of operation in September, the Maryland State Lottery reported Wednesday.

Hollywood Casino, which opened Sept. 27 with 1,500 slot machines, averaged nearly $346 a machine per day. That's higher than the state's projection of $210 a machine per day, which was laid out in a 2007 study by the Department of Legislative Services, whose estimate was based on assumptions that do not hold true today.

Gaming analysts say the early revenue report is encouraging but not entirely surprising, since the Cecil County casino is the state's sole slots facility and casinos typically draw large crowds when they open.

"While we expect win [per] day to moderate over time given typically high traffic volumes surrounding the grand opening of casinos, we believe initial win [per] day was likely well above expectations," analysts at Union Gaming Research in Las Vegas wrote Wednesday.

The casino in Perryville opened several days ahead of schedule with high hopes for an industry that is expected eventually to generate thousands of jobs for Marylanders and to contribute hundreds of millions of dollars to the state.

"We had a fantastic start to things," said Himbert Sinopoli, the general manager at the Perryville facility, which drew more than 27,600 visitors in September.

Although the casino's performance in September exceeded management's expectations, Sinopoli cautioned that initial revenue was "not typically going to be your average business."

Maryland slots supporters won a 2008 referendum to approve slots at five locations in the state, which had banned slot-machine gambling in the 1960s. But besides Perryville, a casino at Ocean Downs racetrack on the Eastern Shore is the only other facility scheduled to open this year.

Plans for parlors in Baltimore and at Arundel Mills have become entangled in legal challenges. And the state has been unable to identify an acceptable bidder to operate a slots parlor at Rocky Gap in Western Maryland.

Anne Arundel voters will decide in a November referendum whether to allow the 4,750-machine slots parlor proposed by the Cordish Cos.

Of the $2 million in revenue for September, nearly 49 percent will go to the Maryland Education Trust Fund.

"The money generated from slots will benefit many important state programs, most significantly public education," Maryland Lottery Director Stephen Martino said in a statement.

The remaining revenue will be split among several other parties. The casino owner, Penn National Gaming, will receive 33 percent, or $685,026.71.

Others that will receive a portion of the slots revenue include the Maryland Lottery; small, minority- and women-owned businesses; the state's horse-racing purse account and a racetrack facility renewal account. Also, Cecil County and Perryville will each receive a portion of the slots revenue. State law set the percentage each group receives.

Perryville Mayor James L. Eberhardt said the city was eager to receive its allocation, slated to be nearly $40,000. Much of the city's slots revenue is expected to be spent on public safety, including the hiring of additional police officers and the purchase of equipment, Eberhardt said.

For the rest of the year, Union Gaming is projecting daily revenue of $180 per machine at Hollywood Casino. The fourth quarter is typically a slower period in the industry.

Steven Wieczynski, a gaming analyst at Stifel Nicolaus, said it was still too early to assess the casino's performance, though he noted that Perryville's September revenue was better than he had expected.

In contrast, competitors in surrounding states such as Pennsylvania and West Virginia averaged $313 and $229 daily per slot machine in July and August, according to Wieczynski. Casinos in Delaware generated $217 daily per machine during the same period, he said.

Revenue projections for Maryland's slots program were based on several assumptions, including the expectation that all five approved casinos would be open and that the maximum of 15,000 slot machines would be operating.

"Traffic studies have been done at Laurel, and there is already an existing grandstand to use to temporarily house the slot machines while we build out the permanent facility, given we have a proven track record at Perryville. At record time we developed the casino."

Right, and the studies show that it would be impossible to put a casino there. Do you have a link to that? I'd like to send it to my wife's friend who did the study

They are just looking to make up any reason to convince people to vote against Question A. They tried to convince people that it was going to be in the mall with the children, now they are trying to turn it into voting for Penn instead of Cordish. I even got a flier the other day saying that if we vote for Question A Cordish plans to erect a giant tent in the parking lot while they build the permanent structure and that belongs in the circus, not a family friendly mall!

The whole thing is retarded.

edit: found the link on baltimore suns website.

http://wjz.com/local/casino.maryland.Arundel.2.1978631.html

It's 50-50 on the vote right now. It looks like the anti-slots people have done a good job striking fear in the voters minds.