D __ __ __ __ D__ __ __ __ __Touts Its Terrible Management Once Again
Q: What Delaware business (a monopoly), celebrates its own bad management in order to suck up tax dollars?
Dover Downs loses money again
Oct 26th, 2017 · by Matt BittleDOVER — Dover Downs lost $137,000 in the third quarter of 2017, leaving it $289,000 in the red through nine months of the year.
The casino announced the figures Thursday in its quarterly filing. Dover Downs made $520,000 in the July through September period of 2016 and was up $1.08 million at this point last year.
“It should be apparent that the state’s gaming revenue sharing formula is unsustainable when considering that the company has paid out $56.4 million to the state and the horsemen, while incurring a pretax loss of $366,000 through the first nine months of the year,” company President and CEO Denis McGlynn said in a statement. “We will continue to pursue a more equitable approach to this industry.”
How much did McGlynn and the genius executive team make while the company was “losing” $137,000?
The execs there were still making fat salaries while they were cutting all the folks making 512 an hour. No crocodile tears from me for Dover Downs. The Legislators should say NO to any future bailouts.
Well, it’s not a bailout if you’re reducing a tax burden that only exists for this industry. Delaware Casinos pay a greater percentage of their revenue to Delaware than any other business. Blindly taking the side opposite of a company is just as ignorant as blindly taking a position on their behalf.
If a solar company wanted to come to Delaware and rethugs who are anti-green technology decided to apply a greater tax burden on that industry, we would be up in arms.
Casinos received that treatment in the 90s when Carper and all of those bible thumpers (some of the same ones who would eventually turn their righteous indignation toward gays) were anti gambling. They applied an unsustainable tax burden on this “sin” industry and as competition has increased, the burden has remained unchanged. Reducing that burden is not a bailout.
If you don’t want to do it because the state needs that revenue to balance the budget; Fine, that’s a legit concern. But just calling it a bailout is lazy and borderline irresponsible.
Delaware Casinos pay a greater percentage of their revenue to Delaware than any other business. (AS THEY SHOULD)
Blindly taking the side opposite of a company is just as ignorant as blindly taking a position on their behalf. (LETS SEE SOME FINANCIALS – Welfare King McGlynn’s Salary and Bonus? Once of the Executives Team’s junkets to Vegas could have made up this accounting loss)
Anytime I see tortured twisted pretzel logic like Bane’s and I see comments like that from a politician like Paradee I know one thing.
It’s a bailout.
Oddly enough when Delaware was the only place for gambling in the mid atlantic outside of AC there wasnt much complaining. They just had no idea how to move with the times. Plus its not like they are in a desireable location. “hey honey, you want to go to Dover for the weekend?” said no one who didnt sleep in a tent or an RV.
I looked at the salaries over the years of the top execs….even when declining revenues, salaries did not come down..its public info because they are public company ….speaks volumes…they fired low wage workers though..no sympathy here!!
they were given a monopoly and now they are crying
@Bane: You are incorrect, sir. The state’s take in the early years of legalized slots was well BELOW other states. The state decided to rectify that at about the same time Pennsylvania and Maryland legalized them too — in other words they tried to make up the looming lost revenue by taking a bigger slice.
That’s a dumb move on the state’s part, but stop pretending the racinos had to deal with this from the start. They did not. They had years to plan for this, and instead the Rickmans used their half-a-billion-dollar profit to buy racetracks in Maryland and successfully lobby for slots there. In short, Delaware’s low tax level put in Rickman’s pocket the money he used to undermine Delaware’s source of revenue.
If these people can’t make a profit, they should sell to someone who thinks they can. Have any of them put their properties on the market? Of course not. And, as someone noted above, they haven’t cut their own pay, either — a valid point when they want to parade their annual profit as less than one executive’s salary.
Their first, last, and only recourse has always been to fleece the citizens of Delaware.
With all the out of state competition now , Dover Downs should probably close and all those excess gamblers could just drive to DE Park and Harrington. They will go somewhere!! Maybe DE can only sustain 2 casinos now….its called competition folks.. let DD close, rather than throw taxpayer money at it, and strengthen the hand of the other two racinos .
Closing would put a hurting on Kent County. That is the empty threat McGylnn is making and his bluff needs to be called.
If this business is so terrible, let the market decide.
Casinos are not a normal business and shouldn’t be taxed like one. The high taxes are basically a sin tax. The idea is we’d rather not have gaming unless the state gets a really big take, which outweighs the moral opprobrium against gambling. If the state only gets a regular tax take, the opprobrium is suddenly greater than the benefit.
That was the original deal. Two things have happened in the meantime: Gambling has become normalized, and other non-gambling jobs have fled the state.
As far as I’m concerned the decent jobs left a long time ago. I live in Delaware for the cost of living, but have almost always held an out-of-state job and never found a decent job here. Personally I’d rather not see all our old folks lining up at casinos to piss away their Social Security checks and grocery money.
The legislators are being held hostage by McGlynn’s empty threats….the state can’t give money (or relief) to casinos when they are cutting grant in aid dollars and education dollars …just not feasible. Dover Downs used to thrive on all the Maryland business. So much of their profit came from out of state gamblers, like close to half I think ….but once MD opened up some nice casinos in Baltimore, Perryville and now National Harbor, a lot of that $$ has dried up. Plus, like has been said, not a lot to do In Dover, not exactly a tourist destination…kind of like being in ACity…….
I wish we could get a PhD Finance candidate to do a study to see if its really worth it to the Delaware economy to have these things here. Certainly it was great when they were one of two sites on the Eastern Seaboard, but now I’m not so sure. Yes they bolster the general fund but a very large percentage of that $$ now comes from locals who might otherwise be buying baby a new pair of shoes. Ex. maybe one reason the Dover Mall is doing poorly is because some of the $$ that would otherwise be spent there vanishes into a slot machine.
Absolutely….but the Delaware way won’t permit true evaluation to be done. Its all BS study commitees put together of cronies and funded by casino contributions…. those Dover Downs lobbyists feed and own some of those legislators…
Studies have shown for years that when gambling comes to town, all other forms of discretionary spending drop. The reason the state doesn’t care is that there’s no other form of discretionary spending that brings as much revenue to the state. Baby’s new shoes only bring in the 2% gross receipts tax.
Many politicians and technocrats consider gambling revenue a clawback of government funds spent on the poor and elderly, who form the majority of the gambling population.