CASINO MAGNATE Steve Wynn's announcement that he's no longer interested in Philadelphia as a site for a new casino made us feel like a homely girl jilted by the handsome jock who wooed us into thinking he was serious about us.
And for that, we'll never forgive him. Especially because it's not the first time Philadelphia got wooed and abandoned by Wynn. In 2010, he took over the troubled Foxwoods project, but changed his mind weeks later.
But we should thank him for one thing: His move is a good wake-up call for all of us in the city - which is scheduled to get a second casino - and the state to assess the gambling industry in the state. In announcing his pullout this week, Wynn cited the performance of the Philadelphia casino market and the recent voter approval of expanding casinos in New York as factors in his folding his hand here.
When Pennsylvania legalized gaming in 2004, Act 71 immediately became a license to print money: By the end of the first year casinos were up and running, the state netted $454 million - which in turn paid out a portion to the horse-race industry, local hosting municipalities and tourism; the rest went to property-tax reduction (wage-tax reduction in Philadelphia).
In the second year, that gross revenue increased by 200 percent; in the third, another 25 percent, to $1.7 billion. That rapid growth then tapered off, and this past year, revenues declined 2 percent, leading many to fret that the gift horse was slowing down and the market was saturated. Still, the revenue generated in fiscal year 2012-13 was more than $2.4 billion from total wagers of $30 billion.
That's right: $30 billion. During a brutal recession, casinogoers have wagered tens of billions of dollars a year, putting Pennsylvania in the lead for tax revenues generated by casinos. Not surprisingly, many states are falling over themselves to capture casino money; New York is only the most recent entry.
Some experts and many anti-casino advocates fretted from the get-go that Pennsylvania casinos would not only potentially cannibalize each other, but that other "me-too" states would create stiffer competition for the state's casinos, leading to a bloody battle for gamblers' dollars. It's hard to determine whether we've definitively reached the saturation point. That's why state Sen. Joe Scarnati deserves credit for pressing for a state study to assess where we are and whether the state's gaming industry is as competitive as it could be.
That's not the only welcome reassessment happening in Harrisburg: Another bill pending introduction would put the horse-race industry under the oversight of the state Gaming Control Board. This is a logical move, since the $1.5 billion that the horse industry has captured from gambling - 12 percent of the 55 percent tax on wagers that the state captures - has had little scrutiny or oversight. Now if only Harrisburg would reassess the largesse that industry enjoys. More of the dollars pouring in from gambling should help address the many human needs in this state - especially before increased competition starts slowing down those dollars more dramatically.