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Reflections

Rolling the Dice in Pittsburgh

by Ralph R. Reiland,
Professor of Free Enterprise

So now the fancy brick promenade outside the new Majestic Star Casino in Pittsburgh won't be so majestic, or so star-like. In fact, there won't be any bricks at all -- just some cheap concrete. And the upscale outdoor crosswalks in the original plan also are gone, set to be replaced by some "native grasses" -- or maybe some native weeds if things keep coming apart.

In any case, unless Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato slips Majestic Star Casino owner Don Barden some landscaping cash out of the overflowing funds from the new 10% drink tax, it looks like the Majestic's grand entrance will be concrete and grass, like at Pizza Hut.

Also on the chopping block, because of Mr. Barden's lack of money, is the proposed boat dock at the North Shore casino. Barden is also seeking to put the proposed casino amphitheater and ballroom on a three-year "delay."
Altogether, the original vision of boating over to see Snoop Dogg and then hip-hoppin' across some swanky brickwork to play some Joker Poker and dance the night away is gone.

Barden's spokesman Bob Oltmanns said that the downscaling, cutbacks and delays have "nothing to do" with Mr. Barden's troubles in getting the funds to finance the casino.

Work at the casino site came to a halt in June after Barden didn't come up with $10 million that he still owes contractors for work performed during April and May. That failure to produce the necessary funds also was allegedly unconnected to Barden's worse-than-empty pockets (i.e., his casinos in other locations are reportedly at least $550 million in the red).

In a unanimous vote by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, Barden was awarded the gaming license for the North Shore casino in December 2006, the month that ended a quarter during which Barden's Majestic Star Casino LLC, the parent company of PITG Gaming that now holds the Pittsburgh gaming license, lost some $9.5 million. A great vetting job!

We now see what works. In order to beat your competitors and win a slots license, you tell the folks on the gaming commission everything they want to hear, even if you're flat broke. You tell them you're going to uplift the poor Hill District and save every puppy in the North Side and strike oil on Liberty Avenue and turn Pittsburgh's riverfront into the Gold Coast.

Barden "sold the gaming commission and then sold the city with master plans that highlighted all the riverfront amenities that they would provide," explains Riverlife attorney Clifford Levine, arguing against Barden's most recently requested cutbacks. "They're cutting every single amenity out."
What also is being cut out is any competition for Mr. Barden's casino. The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board is handing out as much as $5 million to pick up illegal slots and poker machines. The Pittsburgh Police Bureau has received $180,000 to pursue the same illegal machines that the city licensed last year for $389,940 -- i.e., the city charged $485 in fees for each of the 804 poker and casino machine it licensed in 2007.

And so now, with Barden not even paying the workers at the casino site, we have the government spending millions to bust into local VFW clubs so that Detroit-based Barden will have a more complete gambling monopoly.

The end result is better for al-Qaida than American veterans, with the local VFW forced to close its doors and the veterans of foreign wars burning more gas to drive to the government-established monopoly in North Side -- and more U.S. dollars for gas being exported to the Middle East.

With the VFW gone, gone too will be the pull-tab games that the veterans sold to support local baseball teams and scholarships -- unless Mr. Barden picks up the tab out of the gambling profits that'll be exported from Pittsburgh to Detroit each day.

Also coming on board from the planning geniuses in the public sector is a new multimillion dollar anti-gambling program for those who get too addicted to Mr. Barden's free drinks and spinning cherries. As currently planned, the state-trained anti-gambling counselors will be paid $64 per hour.
All told, it increasingly looks like the new casino should be called Don Barton's Rope-the-Dopes Casino.

"Ralph R. Reiland is the B. Kenneth Simon Professor of Free Enterprise at Robert Morris University, the owner Amel's Restaurant, and a columnist with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review."