Wealthy CEO of profitable Delaware casino threaten to quit unless the state makes him more wealthy
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.
With all this talk of casinos, I’m in in a betting mood and I’ll say that this bailout for the casinos will pass pretty easily. Meanwhile, trying to pass Senate Bill 142, the expansion of dental benefits to medicaid recipients, is like pulling teeth (pun intended) despite costing almost as much and actually helping real people rather than lining the pockets of a bunch of casino owners.
Love the cartoon… Instead of offering a bailout, passing legislation that casino operators are indebted to the state and the state gets the lions share of any sale of any casino to another buyer, would shut Sutor up for good…
We need that old fool shut up for good…
To be fair, they aren’t asking for a bailout. They are asking to renegotiate the share of revenue they are forced to pay to the state every year. The casinos pay a much higher percentage of taxes to the state than most other business. I don’t think it’s a bailout to ask to keep more of your company’s revenue.
“…casinos pay a much higher percentage of taxes to the state than most other business.”
As they should because they are more profitable than most businesses and their “product” creates greater downstream demand for state services than most business other than heroin dealing.
And anyway… in spite of how he tries to spin it, Sutor is directly negotiating for a larger compensation package. Taxpayers have every right to say “fuck that.”
Oh let them give him a raise and give the guy another bonus. AND, while we’re at it give Bloom Energy some more of the taxpayers money!!!!
Delaware should not be the bank for everyone. They are very bad at it and don’t have a very good track record.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!!!!
The Bloom Energy axe grinding is getting a little humorous. It is as if Bloom Energy kidnapped your family or something.
Why is gambling revenue used to balance the state budget? DE has the most unstable state budget of any state I know of. Unclaimed property, fees from corporate crooks, gambling revenue…all unstable sources for a budget that is known.
Corporate fees are an extremely stable source of income. They vary less than revenue from income taxes.
Unless they leave for another state?
@Jason330,
Well you’re of the mindset of bigger government.
Let the government put their hands in everyone’s pockets.
Let’s fund a private owned company and not get anything in return.
Basically, you are a Democratic lemming!
Well some of us are tired of the lying and falsehoods, on how this was put thru. And, maybe some people well wake up and put an end to this!! I still believe that there is hope, I know many people that are tired of this. Let the money go to education or our roads, which out current administration keeps stealing from!
Per the Delaware constitution, these games are the state lottery. We have basically just hired Delaware Park and Dover Downs to administer the program. Now the company that administers the program wants to re-negotiate the price.
Perhaps we should put it out to bid. That would be the stance if we were talking about a company administering Medicaid, Medicare, school lunches or highway repair.
“Perhaps we should put it out to bid.”
Boom! Goes the dynamite.
“Unless they leave for another state?”
More than 1 million corporations are chartered in Delaware. Other states have tried to undermine us for decades but haven’t made much of a dent, which is why the revenue from this source is so stable.
The big corporations stay here because Delaware’s laws make hostile takeovers more difficult and Chancery Court is dedicated to serving corporations, which like the stability of a business court’s rulings and precedents.
As John Kowalko has repeatedly noted, the state could raise tens of millions by upping the fees modestly. Opponents use your argument, that raising the costs will prompt companies to leave, ignoring the absurdity of a multi-billion-dollar corporation going through that upheaval to save $25,000 a year.
I haven’t looked it up, but I’d bet that Delaware loses more corporations to offshoring than it does to other states.
OA’s comments generally deserve no response, but this …
“Let the money go to education or our roads, which out current administration keeps stealing from!”
is so blatantly false it must be countered. The current administration has, in fact, stolen far less from “our roads” than previous administrations did. The Transportation Trust Fund was diverted to DelDOT salaries years before Markell took office.
@ anonymous “The current administration has, in fact, stolen far less from “our roads” than previous administrations did.”
SO, that makes it right?? That is a very poor argument.
“If nothing is done, proponents of legislative help say, the casinos could go under.”
Let me play a song for you on the world’s smallest violin.
@OA: No, that makes you wrong.
Aurochs, I know right? The terrorist has a gun pointed at his own head and is threatening to pull the trigger.
The state does not benefit from the limited number of casinos. The casinos do. There is no logical argument as to why the state should limit gaming to the existing casinos. The number of gamblers would not go down if we had more casinos. In fact, it would likely go up as new venues came on-line. At worst it would be revenue neutral to the state. I truly don’t get how legislators accept the argument to restrict the licenses so severely. Yes, an old casino may close if a new one is built. That happens everyday. I agree with a previous post “put it out to bid.” We will quickly find out if others in the gaming industry find the state’s share onerous.
That said, I really hate that we rely on gambling revenue in our state.