“It’s personal with me. It’s more than just a deal.”
?Mitchell Etess, CEO, Mohegan Sun, who grew up in the hotel industry in the Catskill Mountains of New York and hopes to help rebuild its with a Class III casino
“It might seem like an easy way to raise money, but it’s being siphoned out of people who are suffering. It’s not just rich people having fun, it’s ruining peoples lives and now they are being told to do more of it.”
?Stephen Q. Shafer, Coalition Against Gambling in New York
“The mission is to substantiate with data—not anecdotes or myths—what the impacts of casino gambling are in Massachusetts. It never has been done like this anywhere else, and it will create a database of information that will be valuable worldwide. This will be a phenomenal resource.”
—Stephen Crosby, chairman of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, on the state’s baseline study of problem gambling prevalence prior to the coming launch of casinos
“Station wants us closed, PT’s wants us closed. Maybe you want us closed. I don’t want to be on welfare.”
?Tony Hanshaw, Dotty’s bartender, addressing Clark County, Nevada commissioners on a ruling that forces the tavern chain to change its business model or lose some of its slot machines
“Using realistic revenue projections before passing a potential online poker bill in California could go a long way toward alleviating similar feelings down the road, making for a more stable operating environment.”
—Jason Kirk, writing about the prospects for online poker legislation being adopted this year by the California legislature
“California has led the world in computer and internet innovation, and there is no good reason why we can’t continue to lead with a sensible online poker framework.”
—Mike Gatto, California Assemblyman, commenting on a bill he has introduced in the state legislature to legalize online poker
“Those businesses that moved their operations abroad to avoid paying UK taxes will now have to pay their fair share of tax. The government has created a level playing field across the gambling industry so that all gambling by UK consumers is now subject to UK tax.”
—Priti Patel, UK Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, on new regulations that require that offshore gaming operations pay taxes to the UK, whether they are based in the country or not
“The worst problems continue to be for people low on the economic scale, partly because any loss hits them harder, and partly because, for them, gambling can be seen as a way ‘up.’ They really think and hope they are going to win.”
—John W. Welte, co-author of the University of Buffalo study “Gambling and Problem Gambling in the United States: Changes Between 1999 and 2013,” on the relationship between socioeconomic factors and gambling
“I both respect and admire Vicky Coren’s personal stance on online casino gaming. I assume she asked herself a lot of tough questions, and in the end, drew a line in the sand that she wasn’t willing to cross. I suppose everyone has their own line in the sand and they aren’t all going to be in the same place, and that’s neither right nor wrong. What matters most is that when you draw that line you also follow it up with doing what you feel is right, and Vicky deserves all the kudos in the world for doing that.”
—Daniel Negreanu, Team PokerStars pro, on his personal blog on the decision of fellow pro Victoria Coren to end her sponsorship agreement with PokerStars after the site added casino games
“My goal is that all of our gaming revenue is sub–50 percent of the company’s revenue. We are a consumer tech–focused company. We didn’t buy Rational because of gambling; we wanted it badly because it had 89 million consumers. I wouldn’t call them players or gamblers—they are consumers.”
—David Baazov, CEO of Amaya Gaming to Forbes Magazine on the company’s $4.9 billion purchase of PokerStars
“As elected leaders, it is our responsibility to promote projects that stimulate economic development, job creation and quality of life. We believe the development of a casino in Newark or Essex County is an undertaking that will spur the continued revitalization and strengthen the stability of the county and the state’s largest city. We request that you consider Newark and Essex as a possible location for a casino in Northern New Jersey.”
—Joseph N. DiVincenzo, Essex County executive in a letter to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and state lawmakers on the possible new location for a casino in northern New Jersey
“If you go back and look in the records, you will find a lot of emphasis in the ’70s and ’80s, into the ’90s—the time that Atlantic City was doing very well, and had the monopoly that it once enjoyed—there was a lot of commentary, I among others, in trying to persuade the leaderships of the casino industry and the government entities that the more successful Atlantic City was, the more it would engender its own competition. And therefore it was necessary to think long-term, in terms of how to position Atlantic City, and what to do about it. That message, unfortunately, was lost.”
—Steven Perskie, primary author of New Jersey’s Casino Control Act to the Press of Atlantic City
“In the first quarter of 2014 we saw player acquisition via the mobile channel hit 40 percent and it’s continued to rise over the rest of the year, suggesting that cross-channel acquisition is the industry’s future. We’ve transformed our platform into an integrated acquisition-tracking technology capable of streamlining each and every channel—with Income Access—the acquisition whole is now greater than the sum of its parts.”
—Nicky Senyard, founder and CEO of Income Access, announcing the company’s new mobile app-tracking solution
