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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Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Tables expand despite disappointing

By Dave Anderson:


The Rivers Casino is expanding its table games operation.  The PG has the details.  However a deeper look into the numbers does not suggest that there is massive unmet demand for table games right now. 




the North Shore casino is proposing to add 19 more table games to its offerings, its first major expansion since the state authorized the form of gambling last year.


The increases, if approved by the state Gaming Control Board, would bring the casino's total complement of table games to 107, third most in the state.


The state of Pennsylvania is expecting to see $75 million dollars from new table games taxes during Fiscal Year 2011.  This is an unadjusted tax revenue flow of roughly $6.2 million dollars per month.  The state started off slow with roughly half the revenue per table per day in July that it would need to meet this figure over a year.  Since then, table games have produced stronger months, but even the best month, October 2010, revenue is below the needed monthly average by 12%. 


The Rivers is not a fiasco on table games like it is on slots revenue when compared to expectations.  The Rivers take per table gaming station is 97% of the state wide average take per table gaming station for the entire period that data is available.  There have been a few months where the take is over the state average (including July where the discrepency is the Rivers was began table gaming earlier than most casinos in the state) and a few where the take per table gaming station is significantly less than the monthly state average. 


The Rivers has been average.  And average is significantly below expectations. 


This would not be a huge deal except that the Rivers Casino table gaming local tax share is supposed to backfill the local library funding gap that has occurred because sales tax revenue to the Regional Asset District has flatlined for the past several funding cycles. 


Whoops!


 The Rivers expansion might cannibalize some gaming revenue from Washington Downs and Wheeling casinos which would help out the local libraries.  However the initial glance at the data does not suggest that there is a whole lot of money available.  So the can that was kicked down the road by dedicating table gaming revenue to the libraries is back again. 


 


NB:  My spreadsheet is here if you want to play with it:  Download Rivers Casino Table Games





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