Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Thursday, November 12, 2009

Casino cash and competition

By Dave Anderson

The Pittsburgh Rivers Casino is still collecting revenue at the stable range of $160 to $180 dollars per machine per day. This week, the take was $175 per machine per day. The four week moving average has stabilized and is showing a slight increase, but the slope is minimally positive, and there is no way that the state will see the tax revenue that it expected from the Pittsburgh casino. The owners are SOL. The casino would need to more than double its take per machine per day to meet the owners' projections for the first year.

Rivers_casino_revenue_per_machine_per_day


However, that is old news. The more interesting news is the long run projection. Gambling is a mature industry as almost everyone is within a few hours drive of a casino, or will be in the near future. Ohio recently approved four new casinos for its major cities, and this will have significant impact on Pittsburgh and the other Western Pennsylvania casinos as Ohio was the last big market that did not have casinos that could provide local, but out of state revenue. In a few years, the Pittsburgh casino will just be cannibalizing, at a higher tax rate, other entertainment and discretionary expenditures of Pennsylvania state residents.


Chris briem casino graphics Chris Briem at Null Space put together this graph of the projected future competition from the new casinos that are authorized in Ohio and one that may be built in Lawrence County, PA. As you can see, there is massive overlap of the 100 mile customer bases for the Pittsburgh, Lawrence County and Cleveland casinos. Remember this graphic does not show the Erie, Washington, PA, or the Wheeling WV casinos. The overlap of market regions for Pittsburgh and Western PA is much more pronounced than this graphic, but it is a good start to visualize future problems.



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