Penn National and Ohio

image downloaded from Beulah Park

This week, Penn National announced plans to close race track operations at Raceway Park in Toledo and Beulah Park in Columbus, and move those operations to Youngstown and Dayton respectively.  This gives them the opportunity to establish new slot machine operations in communities which were shut out of the gambling referendum which passed in 2009, establishing one casino each in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus and Toledo.  This proposal keeps them one step ahead of the state in the slow, governmentally deficient process of establishing casinos in Ohio. 

Nothing which has occured throughout this mess has put any portion of the state government in a good light.  The legislature never took up the initiative to write rules which would establish issuance of gambling permits through competitive bidding and establishment of tax rates and targeting of revenue.  They left that up to gambling interests which continued to push statewide referendums establishing their own monopolies and taxation rates.  It was clear these operators were going to continue pushing initiatives until they won.  Governor Strickland granted the Ohio horse tracks the rights to put in slots.  Nobody addressed whether these operations could relocate, and no other entities got the opportunity to bid for operations. 

Now, 2 of the 4 casinos and 2 of the 7 racetracks are owned by Penn National.  They plan to move the racetracks from the cities in which their casinos were located, to cities which didn't have facilities.  They've announced plans in Dayton to redevelop the closed Delphi facility on Needmore Road.  This proposal takes aim at Governor Kasich's lukewarm, "under study" stance on the slots-at-tracks issue.  They have enlisted supporters in the Dayton region, and the brownfield redevelopment is a brilliant strategy to put pressure on the Governor.  They will probably take advantage of state brownfield redevelopment money in the process, considering they have been blackmailing Columbus for infrastructure improvements.  State officials, in their efforts to placate religious conservatives who dislike gambling, have consistently been behind the 8-ball on this issue.  It was clear from the start that Ohioans have no qualms about travelling to neighboring states to gamble.  It was stupid to let the industry drive the bus on this issue, and the state has gotten run over.