Oklahoma casino funds buck trend
Nationally, revenue from gambling is down this year, study shows
BY SONYA COLBERG
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Published: September 22, 2009
Oklahoma’s gambling revenue is a neck ahead of last year.
That bucks the national trend of declining gambling dollars going to states, according to a report by The
Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government.
Electronic gambling machine. Photo by Steve Sisney/The Oklahoman
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State’s Casino share
• Fiscal year 2009: $105.6 million
• FY 2008: $81.4 million
• FY 2007: $46.8 million
• FY 2006: $14.2 million
• FY 2005: $2.3 million
Source: Office of State Finance
At first glance, it appears the financial news is bad: Oklahoma’s lottery revenue has fallen to $69 million, down from $72 million in fiscal year 2008.
"You could argue part of the reason the lottery is down is because tribal gaming has done so well,” state
Treasurer Scott Meacham said.
Most states are crumpling beneath a lottery decline because that’s where they get the bulk of gaming revenue. But Oklahoma’s big winners are the state’s still-flush tribal casinos.
Oklahoma’s three racinos — race tracks with slot machines — added slightly to state gambling revenue.
"Yes, it is true that the revenues from racinos increased,” institute
Senior Policy Analyst Lucy Dadayan said. "But the revenues collected from racino operations are very low compared to revenues collected from lotteries. And as in many other states, revenue collections from lotteries declined in Oklahoma.”
Overall, state revenue from casinos hit a high of $106 million in fiscal year 2009, according to the state Finance Department. The state gets a percentage of each tribe’s revenue from card games and
Las Vegas-style gaming machines.
Despite a stumble when revenue from casinos declined in June by 10 percent in
Oklahoma, casinos are easily outrunning the herd.
"We pull in a lot more out-of-state gamers,” Meacham said. "And our facilities, if you look at what’s happened over the last five years, we’ve tremendously upgraded the quality of travel gaming facilities in the state.
"It used to be kind of trailer house and metal building facilities. Now it’s these huge, multimillion dollar Las Vegas-quality casinos.”
The Rockefeller study found state and local government revenue from gambling operations fell by 2.8 percent.
That marks the first time revenue has declined nationally in more than three decades.
But in Oklahoma, gambling revenue from the lottery, casinos and racinos totaled $189 million. That’s up from $163 million in 2008.
Meacham said tribal gaming, which goes into education funding, is offsetting declines in income taxes and sales taxes to that fund.
"I think there’s a saturation point out there, and eventually I think we’ll see the saturation point. And we’ll see the number of facilities, like you would in any product life cycle will start to stabilize and then consolidate some,” Meacham said.
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Scratch Offs are a turd wrapped in a glossed piece of paper. Why freaking waste your money?
Only time I have ever won was while in Florida- I "won" (the word connotates some level of skill I am not sure is really warrented in scratching off a card with a penny, but hey!) a box set of Indiana Jones stuff, a leather coat, hat, shoulder man purse (holds a M1911 nicely) and a dvd of the last movie.
I thought is was a clever enough prize- probably not that expensive to the lottery board, but a fun prize to get.
Stuff like that might help them here- shiny trinkets- has worked before for the Dutch.....
The lottery is promoted as a fun way for the state to get some extra education funds, but there is more to it that isn't promoted. It is also a way to get money from people that pay little or no taxes due to income level. Several times I have seen people at a grocery store dropping $20 on lottery tickets, then using an Access Oklahoma card to buy groceries. I have no problem with the lottery, I buy about 10 tickets a year myself. I do have a problem with the possibility of kids going hungry while mom and dad get their tickets.
Good post, David. I would like to see "truth in disclosure" for casinos in OK. I do go on occassion to OK casinos. Poker rake appears to be a little less than 10%. That website said blackjack normally favors the house 1%, but that is probably for skilled players. I'm guessing the house pulls in around 5%. However, the blackjack ante in Oklahoma casinos adds a rake to a game that favors the house, making it a bad deal. Slot machines in OK, who knows?
The tribal compacts were all constructed and completed by mr. meecham. Sad to say, two years after the agreements were inked there are a large legal/academic/scholarly study done that concluded Oklahoma pretty well gave away the farm in the compacts that were signed and are the basis of the Oklahoma gaming system. The tribes came out clearly ahead in the arrangments, and the state walked away from considerable additional revenues and more effective oversight of the industry.
Currently the State and it's enforcement staff are very roundly at the disadvantage and powerless regarding the tribal casinos-
The tribal casinos are a bit more difficult to figure out the odds on, it would have been nice for a "truth in disclosure" type of requirement for ALL gambling- a list for each game applying the house rules and then showing what the odds are. Of course a bunch of folks might not gamble if this was posted by say the front door! :)
What are allowed as house procedural rules can make the odds of winning vary widely, how many cards in the shoot for example. And while there are some guidelines in the tribal compacts on gambling, there is a good deal of latitude for each casino within those rules. In areas where the casinos are bunched up, Vegas or Atlantic city, each establishment will wary a little within the rules (although both LV and AC have very strict gaming commisions compared the tribal compacts) to "draw" players in.
House odds in heavily regulated enviornments are actually pretty slim though- check out http://www.insidervlv.com/casinoodds.html
With house odds so slim, how does it work then- VOLUME! Simply amazing cash flow though the numbers of folks who participate.
I am not into it personally- it was always clear to me that those huge opulant casinos were not built by losing more money than they bring in... I have done a lottery ticket here and there but I have never expect to win- ever.
I don't know the exact figures, but I think about 38 cents of each lottery dollar is returned to the player as prizes. At a casino, each game is different, but it is probably 90 cents of each dollar goes back to the players. Does it take a genius to figure out where the gambling money is going?
Wasn't there a story in the newspaper a few days ago about the growing gambling addiction problem in Oklahoma? Hhhmmm, could there be a connection to this story?
The Lottery is down because it is always down...every revised projection they came out with has been a downward projection.