Oops. Looks like UMASS researcher Clyde Barrow is ticked off at the folks from United To Stop Slots:
Yikes – “anti-gaming zealots”, “fanatics”, “jihad” – all pretty loaded terms. Aren’t those the same terms Fox News uses for Democrats and Muslims terrorists?
Personally this sounds like a classic SLAPP tactic to me – the threat of lawsuit – something that’s been tossed about in Middleboro plenty of times. SLAPP – is defined by Wikipedia this way:
Regardless of where Barrows gets his funding, I find his studies to be sorely lacking in a key part of the cost/benefit analysis required for casinos – specifically the cost portion. No Barrows study I have read, includes any serious accounting of the economic downside of gambling. He seems to be able to list the benefits ad infinitum, but rolls a big snake eyes when it comes to the other side of the ledger. Earl Grinols has run the numbers and found that they don’t work. His work has it’s critics, but none of those critics have offered alternative numbers. This of course is the equivalent of telling someone that they wrong but that you don’t know the answer either. Convincing.
Generally speaking, any thing will come out favorably in a cost/benefit analysis when you only look at the benefits. And that’s my problem with Clyde’s research.
Now Clyde, go home, put on your big-boy pants, and stop picking on the grassroots citizens who oppose casinos.
Ever since the news that the Middleboro casino investors had stopped payments to the tribe, there have been a number of articles and blogs dissecting the information.
It’s funny how people read a news article and are affected in different ways. Whenever I see a news report that describes the agreement as being worth $11M, I go apoplectic. I took note while reading an Alice Elwell article that described Wayne Perkins as “a chief negotiator”. I wondered what Adam Bond would think of that. Apparently not much since he wrote a blog post that lambasted Wayne Perkins for his position that return of pre-payment monies is covered in the IGA(it’s not).
Personally I don’t think the tribe would come after the money, but I fully support the notion of getting it in writing. Why wouldn’t we?
Clyde … WTF!?
So clearly that “chief negotiator” thing got Adam’s panties in a twist and here’s something from a recent news article that bunched up my knickers:
In June 2007, he described the first agreement this way:
So when did a “bad deal” become a “good one”. Granted that Barrows was talking about the first agreement, but the financials of the second one are very similar.
It just goes to show that you never know what will piss somebody off.
Perennial casino cheerleader and pro-casino study-producing machine Clyde Barrows has been criticized by the RI DOR for a report that found low payout rates for the VLT(Video Lottery Terminals) in Twin(buddy can you spare a dime) Rivers and Newport(ain’t so) Grand. Barrows’ study found an average payout of 73 cents per dollar compared to rates of 92 cents in other parts of the region and said that a patron of these facilites is “a loser before he or she even enters the facility.
Imagine, a casino patron losing money. I’m shocked.
High payout rates are key to the addicting effects of slot machines with frequent small wins enforcing the feeling that that big win might come with the next pull of the handle or push of the button.
In any event, the RI DOR blasted Mr. Barrows saying:
I will say that I generally have problems with much of Barrows’ research – specifically the ones that show massive economic benefit with no accounting of socio-economic costs. However, in the study cited in the article, I agree with Barrows’ take on the payment structure for Twin Rivers – who have been crying poor-mouth to decrease their payments to the state:
Hey RI DOR: Stop picking on Clyde. That’s my job.
I’d be interested to hear more about the 20 point discrepancy in the payout rates between Barrows’ numbers and the DOR’s claim.
What article about casinos would be complete without the hopelessly optimistic and totally irrepressible casino cheerleader Clyde Barrow telling us all not to worry – that the casino’s prospects are just fine.
I will say that Clyde probably isn’t far off in his assessment of the financial problems facing Twin Rivers. He reckons that Kerzner and Wolman “misjudged the market in Rhode Island”. I don’t think that’s the case. Opinions are like you-know-whats and nobody has a bigger one than me … except for possibly Clyde and definitely Scott Ferson.
As is often the case when a state allows casinos, they are subjected to the ‘ol bait and switch. They are promised certain benefits and then the casinos try to change the rules after they get their foot in the door. They end up asking for less payments, or more slots, or more hours, or a 24 hour liquor license, and so on. In this case, I am quite sure that Kerzner and Wolman are taking advantage of their financial woes to get Rhode Island to cut the slot percentage of just over 61% – or maybe just back an expansion into a full blown resort casino.
Here is where Clyde went off the rails:
This does not sound very likely to me. Nobody is going to give the tribe a billion dollars and let them “manage it”. The tribe has no expertise running an enterprise larger than a clam shack. Kerzner and Wolman are the guys who will find the billion dollars and manage it. They have just shown in Rhode Islande that they can’t be trusted with large sums of money. Twin Rivers has an S&P rating of CCC which in plain english is “total crap”.
Despite what “expert” Clyde Barrow says, the Twin River situation is bad news for the Mashpee Wampanoag.
Back to the deal between Kerzner and the tribe. I don’t know what the arrangement is. Normally Kerzner will have a management contract that gives him far more than is allowed under IGRA. If someone knows the details of the deal – post a comment please.
Recent Comments