Stating the obvious (gambling edition)

By Dave Anderson:

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is trying to put on a happy face to the region's gambling revenue declines.  There are gains, month over month, as long as one neglects to mention the G-20's effective closure of the Pittsburgh casino, or admit that some months have more days than other months, and therefore, one should expect to see slightly higher revenue in months with more days in them than short months.  There was very little learning or the possibility of learning going on in that article as the PG just took quotes and slapped them together without applying too much thought. 

However there was one valuable line in the entire piece and it came from a PR spokesman for the Washington Downs casino:

"We are in an incredibly competitive marketplace..."

Gambling is a mature industry now.  There are no more freebie monopoly profits for easy public revenue that is not a dreaded broad based tax. 

And from a public finance perspective, the problem will get worse as Ohio will be introducing casinos soon, and an already saturated market will have even more large entities competing for the same set of dollars at the same generic facilities. 

My next question is when do we start seeing stories speculating about one of the Pennsylvania casinos current ownership groups going bankrupt?  I suspect sometime in the spring is when we see the first story of this type.