Jumers opens casino in swamp
Apparently the new Jumers Hotel and Casino opened in it's new location in the wetlands near the I-280 bridge.
The only reason I noticed is a one sentence mention over at Capitol Fax, which linked to this article and the decidedly negative comments (including one which asked where Rock Island was.)
There I noticed a link to another decidedly more interesting article which is part of a series done by the Daily Herald on casinos in Illinois, specifically the fact that casinos are tightening the odds on slots and raking in more cash.
You would NEVER see this sort of reporting in the local paper, for whom questioning any local business is apparently forbidden (unless they're relatively small and don't have a state senator carrying their water.)
A few stats:
• Illinois' nine casinos have managed to make 20 percent more cash from gamblers despite a 13 percent drop in visits between 2000 and 2007.
• The amount of money pumped into slots has increased just 2 percent in that time, but the casinos' take has jumped 30 percent.
• Casino operators are relying on tighter slot machines, ones programmed to keep more from every dollar bet. In 2000, 7 percent of suburban slots kept more than 10 cents of every dollar bet on average. Last year, 46 percent fell into that category.
• Stingier slots took in $600 million last year statewide, close to the cash needed to cover the casinos' massive tax bill.
• Illinois spends a fraction of what other Midwest states do to help gambling addicts, severely limiting inpatient treatment options.
• Problem gamblers who elect to ban themselves from Illinois casinos are disproportionate from cities with casinos.
• Lawmakers have never specifically researched the impact of legalized gambling in Illinois.
Casino operators say they are simply rolling out tighter slot machines to meet gamblers' demand for these newer, more exciting games. The innovative video slots offer a more entertaining and sometimes longer game, even though they are programmed to pay out less and keep more money than older slot machines.
The new slots are programmed for more losses, they say, because gamblers can play as little as a penny per spin. But they often spend more than $1 and sometimes as much as $5 on a spin every six seconds as they hope to strike it rich.
Seems a road to ruin when the state is putting so many eggs in the basket of gambling outfits feeding off the elderly and undisiplined. And who the hell will have any money to gamble away in the coming economy other than those already addicted?
posted by The Inside Dope @ 12/02/2008
11 comments
11 Comments:
Conservative Demo here:
Gamblers and smokers are losers.
I am amused how the media fails to mention the former Bettendorf Jumer’s which was bankrupted. Why the Jumer Castle Lodges were not able to pay off their creditors and now can build a new Hotel with the help of the tax payers?
CD,
Why stop there. Why not expand on the list of people you look down on? I'm sure there's hundreds.
Hundreds? The number of gamblers and smokers must be in the hundreds of millions.
Righto Dave, but I guess I wasn't clear enough on my meaning. I meant that Anon 7:01 could easily find hundreds of other classes of people they look down on.
Like say, people who missed a spot shaving, or those who wear sweat pants in public, etc.
Or crumpled up cloths to a grave marker.
Anon,
Really, you should put down the crack pipe. You're tripping.
What the hell are you talking about?
Conservative Demo here again:
Thank you ID for the suggestion but, respectfully, I'll compile my own low-life ratings list.
Con Dem.
When you finish it, IF you ever do, as I'm sure it's REALLY long including almost everyone but yourself and those nearly identical to yourself, please share it with us.
Conservative Demo here yet again:
Speaking only in generalities ID, you'd likely applaud most of my nominees to such a list. They'd be mostly drawn from the laundry list of perceived Republican practitioners' failings.
BTW, this Blago news today, while not good is at least perceived as Illinois politics in-general as-usual and hardly surprising. The Republican kinds of crimes on the other hand are the ones which garner such shock and disgust because of the self-righteousness so loudly preached from the right side of the spectrum.
ConDem
Yes, the press has done it's thing with the Blago story, painting Illinois as some sort of barely functioning den of corruption, as if the entire state were Capone era Chicago.
Cheap, easy, fits the storyline, as usual.
And yes, it pales in comparison to the rampant and widespread, and yes, actually more damaging and criminal corruption which characterized the late reign of Republicans in D.C. (and Ohio, and....)
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