House Speaker William Murphy is open to helping Twin River survive.  What form that help might take is still open to discussion, but Murphy insists that the 60%  revenue share the state receives is not negotiable, which I was glad to hear.  Besides reducing the revenue share, there are other ways Twin River could be "bailed out."

     One idea is for the state to take over Twin River.  A few months ago, I thought this might have been a viable option, but it's a lousy idea.  Should Rhode Island buy every private company facing financial problems?  I know the state receives $246 million per year from Twin River, but it would send us down a slippery slope.  Besides that, there are other concerns.  First, who would run the casino?  An operator should be chosen through competitive bidding, but of course, even that would come into question.  Second, we have the potential for unions to wreak havoc.  If you don't believe it, just read what George Nee had to say:

Murphy has said the only option he would not consider is cutting the state’s share of the revenue –– close to 60 cents out of every dollar left behind by losing players at Twin River.

But George Nee, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, nonetheless raised that possibility, saying Tuesday that the state should consider reducing its take if that will save “about 500 union jobs up there” and help head off a bankruptcy filing, which, he argued, would cost the state money.

“I don’t think it’s a good strategy to wait and see what happens,” he said. “I think it is something that should be pursued,” he said. 


     Unions already have too much influence in the State House.  Could you imagine what would happen if the state actually owned a casino?  I could just picture the argument: If you reduce the tax, they could afford to hire more employees and create jobs.  Of course, they would all be union jobs which would increase their ranks.  No thanks, we don't need these problems.

     The best and only solution is to give Twin RIver the tools to compete with Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun.  They should be allowed to have table games, a hotel, and some convention space.  This is a lousy time for the gambling industry, but the table games could be added quickly and rather inexpensively, while the economy would probably pick up by the time a hotel or meeting space were ready to be made available.  A large scale expansion would help Twin River's bottom line, while also increasing the amount of money the state collects from Twin River.  This solution seems to have the least amount of risk to taxpayers, and the most potential for future profits.  Let's see if the General Assembly can figure that out.