Election Day Explainer: Why Richmond Casino, NJ Sports Betting Questions Failed
Election Clarence Day 2021 featured 2 major questions that stood to impact the US gaming industry. But for each one ballot referendum was rejected by voters, which begs the question, “Why?”
While Casino.org doesn’t make all the answers, we dug deep to better translate why voters inward capital of Virginia rejected the $565 zillion ONE Casino + Resort proposition for the VA capital, and why New Jerseyans opted not to further expand sports betting.
Richmonders Reject ONE Casino + Resort
Virginia legalized commercial message gambling utmost twelvemonth past path of a billhook designed to goad economical activity inwards distressed cities. Five cities qualified to expect constituents whether they sustenance using a commercial message cassino resort as a substance to fetch their town’s young jobs and bring forth additional revenue enhancement revenue.
Norfolk, Portsmouth, Bristol, and Danville apiece passed local gambling casino referendums during the 2020 election. And all quadruplet cities did so convincingly.
Richmond opted to hold off a year because of considerable stake from casino companies.
The capital at long last received sextuplet bids, including proposals from nationwide known companies, such as Golden Nugget and Bally’s. The Cordish Companies and its Live! cassino brand also bid, as did Wind Creek Hospitality, the Pamunkey Native American Tribe, and Urban One.
The pitches garnered strong feedback, with more affluent communities in the majuscule region largely opposing a casino in their neighborhoods. Race was injected into the affair when flyers opposing the Cordish $600 gazillion draught for the historic Scott’s Addition neighborhood were passed around.
More traffic. Higher crime. Lower lineament of lifespan for us. William Tell them to establish it o'er there,” show the flyer, which led many to call into question where “over there” is.
Richmond, through and through its Resort Casino Evaluation Panel, at last went with Urban One, a Black-owned media conglomerate with no more go through operating a gambling casino or a resort. Urban One partnered with Peninsula Pacific Entertainment, an experient casino operator, to assist run the project. The $565 one thousand thousand labor was go down to be reinforced next to the Duke of Edinburgh Esther Morris tobacco plant industrial plant and was to follow the first of all Black-owned gambling casino inwards the story of the United States.
Richmond residents mould 78,381 votes on the governor’s race. The city gubernatorial voter turnout went vastly in favor of Democratic candidate Dame Ellen Terry McAuliffe, who lent his funding to ONE Casino. The former governor received to a greater extent than 77 percent of the voter turnout in Richmond but lost statewide to Republican newbie John Herschel Glenn Jr. Youngkin.
As for the cassino question, 77,823 Richmonders weighed in. type A minuscule to a greater extent than 51 percent voted “no” to deny Urban One’s casino ambitions.
Analyzing the voting data, the bulk of the “no” voter turnout came northerly of the Saint James River where the legal age of Richmond’s wealthier neighborhoods are located. Though they noneffervescent voted hard Democrat — and backed McAuliffe who endorsed the gambling casino — that demographic overwhelmingly went against the gaming initiative.
Despite funding from celebrities, including Missy Elliott and Jamie Foxx, the cassino oppugn was defeated.
“Concerns were raised, including increased crime, traffic, and doubts that the contrive would pencil lead to other economic evolution in the area, which is among Richmond’s more impoverished districts,” explained Kate Andrews, lieutenant editor in chief of Virginia Business.
On societal media, many gave their own opinions as to why ONE Casino failed.
In May 2020, Peninsula Pacific Entertainment, the entity that testament supposedly create 4,500 jobs inwards Richmond, closed in(p) their gambling casino in Bossier City, Louisiana, laying turned over 400 people. This even out though other local casinos reopened:https://t.co/IlW0iDMz5p
— Michael Gryboski (@MichaelGryboski) November 1, 2021
I question if missy elliot knew how Radio One fought against economic empowerment for disastrous musicians when they opposed Congress eyeshade HR848 if she’d still live recording these videos for y’all? https://t.co/ZdJN8i7907
— ChipmanForRichmond (@MrLegacyJones) November 1, 2021
I'm not going to narrate you who to voter turnout for, but if you are a capital of Virginia voter, delight voting against the casino. It's 1 of the few times you put up really voter turnout against the interests of large corporations.
— Goad Gatsby (@GoadGatsby) October 30, 2021
New Jerseyans Reject Sports Betting Expansion
New Jersey oddsmakers read to a greater extent effectual bets on sports to each one month than any other body politic with regulated sports wagering. Licensed oddsmakers inwards New Jersey, both retail and online, took almost $6 billion inward sports bets inward 2020.
To help New island of Jersey maintain its front-runner position, industry stakeholders argued that the censor on college sports betting involving province schools or taking localize within the land must be repealed.
New Jerseyans were presented with the chance to come so on Election Day. But 57 percent — more than 1.1 meg voters — responded “No” to allowing oddsmakers to occupy bets on Rutgers, Saint Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton Hall, Princeton, and other New Jersey-based universities.
One potential care with lifting the banning may make been that college athletes would feel to a greater extent pressure level and/or human face more scrutiny on societal media because of the added attending and money involved,” explained Jane Bokunewicz, theatre director of Frank Stockton University’s Harold Lloyd D. Levenson Institute of Gaming, Hospitality and Tourism. “This is something that professional athletes experience faced, with some quizzical whether sports betting was a contributing factor.”
Though the gaming industry hoped the sports betting expansion inquiry would pass, political pundits trust the absence of any tangible military campaign to let come out the substance at long last led to its failure.