Dover Downs’ McGlynn Wrong Again — Sports Betting Did Put It in the Black
‘Memba when Dover Downs’ Denis McGlynn told anyone who would listen that sports betting wouldn’t make his racino profitable? According to this new Matt Bittle story quoting Captain Poormouth in the State News, Dover Downs cleared $666,000 last year on sports betting. Not coincidentally, its profits leaped in the year’s fourth quarter — football season.
More importantly to McGlynn, and probably to the state, DD’s sale is on track to finalize shortly. As has been noted many times, if present management couldn’t turn a profit, surely other operations would like the chance to get into Delaware’s closed casino market. It turns out all McGlynn’s whining about unprofitability were aimed at winning concessions to make that inevitable sale more profitable for Denis McGlynn and other major stockholders — probably unnecessary considering Twin Rivers is buying in for the access to sports betting.
How can (the normally pretty good) Matt Bittle always file these stories without reporting that the management group paid themselves 25% more this year than last year?
Other states are catching up. The casino model only works economically for DE if we are attracting bettors from other states. This pretty much does it for gambling, what’s the next vice DE can exploit?
Maybe we can build a colosseum on the Riverfront, think of the jobs, construction, lion keepers…..we better do it quick before another state beats us to it.