CDC Gaming has matured over the last 15 years. It has grown from being the distributor of a single report, the Adams Daily Report, to a news outlet that five days a week publishes the early morning Flash, mid-day Adams Daily Report and the late afternoon Last Call. And on the weekend CDC publishes Hot Clicks & Picks and the Weekend Report. The CDC website is constantly updated and many additional features have been added over the years, including videos, podcasts and commentaries. The changes have grown organically, so that most of the time I barely notice the differences. However, unusual events sometimes highlight the changes; one of those events was G2E. At the 2017 G2E, CDC had a full staff on the floor covering the event better than any other media outlet; the team published From the Floor every day of the show.
Another of those unusual events happened on February 21st. On that day, the Pennsylvania gaming regulatory agency granted a license for a new mini-casino and then dramatically reversed its decision all within a six hour period of time. The CDC team stepped up to the plate and kept its readers up-to-date through the changes.
Here is the story. In a desperate bid to balance its badly unbalanced budget, the Pennsylvania legislature approved a major expansion of gaming in October. The legislation had many component parts, one of which was called “mini-casinos.” The law allowed for ten mini-casinos with 300-750 slot machines and up to 30 table games for an additional fee. The mini-casino licenses were to be awarded to top bidders at auctions held by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board. The law also allowed communities to opt-out of the process; by the deadline on December 31, 2017 over 1000 communities had declared themselves unwilling to host a casino. However, the state has 2,500 communities, so there were still plenty who were willing to receive the $1.6 million per year host fee.
The auctions began on January 10th with a new one to be conducted every two weeks. At the moment, four auctions have been held. On January 10th, Hollywood Casino submitted a winning bid of $50.1 million; on the 21st the Cordish Company and a partner won a license with a $40.1 million bid; and on the 8th of February Mount Airy Casino was approved for its $21.1 million bid. And then on the 21st the Sands Casino was approved for its $9.9 million offer. Each of these bids was for a specific community. By law, a host community cannot be within 25 miles of an existing casino or within a 15-mile radius of another mini-casino.
And therein lies the rub, the community proposed by the Sands was within the 15-radius of the one already approved for the Mount Airy Casino bid. It took the gaming regulators just six hours to realize their error and reverse their decision. The license was subsequently awarded to Prax Casino’s bid of $8.1 million for a location in South Central Pennsylvania. The complete story developed during one single CDC day, Wednesday, February 21, 2018. In the morning Flash readers were alerted to an auction that day and the Adams Daily carried a story that the Sands Casino had been awarded the fourth license. In the Last Call readers learned that Sands no longer had a license, it had been granted this time to Prax Casino. As the story developed during the day the CDC team worked to stay on top of it. It was a “wow” moment for me; I could almost close my eyes and see a newsroom filled with reporters, copywriters, photographers and editors scurrying to get the story. That newsroom vision in my head comes from an old superman comic book and is sadly out of date, but the CDC team fit into it quite nicely in my mind. “The story, get the story,” they cried in unison. They got it and in the process became a real team. It may not have been a great day for the Sands, but it was a great day for CDC.
