What a racket. I wonder what dover Downs CEO, Ed Sutor, is making in combined salary and bonuses? Whatever it is, he should bring his compensation package to the table when he goes to Leg Hall begging for more welfare.
DOVER — Delaware’s casinos are set to make the same recommendations for legislative relief for the third year in a row.
At a meeting of the Video Lottery Advisory Council Tuesday, casino executives laid out details of the current picture. The market remains “saturated” because of competition in neighboring states, Dover Downs Hotel & Casino President and CEO Ed Sutor. Combined with tax rates the casinos see as stifling, the out-of-state attractions are hurting the state’s gaming industry, although Dover Downs did make a profit of $1.9 million in 2015.
The plan the council is set to approve next month would contain several recommendations, listed in order of preference.
The first option would be to alter the revenue-sharing formula, lowering the tax rates when revenue is down and increasing them when more money is flowing in.
The casinos will also suggest having the state pay all the slot vendor costs. In 2014, lawmakers agreed the state would take on 75 percent of the vendor costs, at a cost of $9 million.
Another proposal has two facets that deal with table games. Both parts would eliminate the annual license fee of $3 million, while the first would slice the table game tax rate from 29.4 percent to 15 percent. The second would have the state share in the cost of vendor fees instead.
According to Mr. Sutor, Dover Downs has never turned a profit off of table games.
“Why do we keep it? We want to be a full-fledged casino,” he said. “If we took it out we’d be a slot bar, something we had been for years and we despised.”
The final part of the recommendations calls for implementing marketing and capital credits, essentially incentivizing the casinos to invest more in themselves.
If nothing is done, proponents of legislative help say, the casinos could go under.
