Today was hopefully a very productive day for our "casinos" "denied claimants". We talked with Executive Director of Mississippi Casino Operators Association, Beverly Martin, on the phone for about a half hour. Later we stopped by the MCOA offices and discussed the upcoming meeting with Mr. Feinberg for most of two hours. She has heard from many of us, and has been hard at work organizing talking points for the Monday meeting. We covered a lot of ground together preparing for her to present our most convincing arguments for including rather than excluding "casino" claims. She is really on our side and will be spending most of the weekend bunkered in preparing for battle. (Please forgive us, Bernie, you can have her back soon, we hope.) This meeting had been set up quite a while back, but it looks like the agenda has been updated. Cross your fingers. It will be a private meeting with Mr. Feinberg and twelve local business leaders. We know that included will be the Executive Director of the Mississippi Casino Operators Association, the Executive Director of the Mississippi Hotel & Lodging Association, two casino executives, and eight others. No elected officials will be included, apparently at the request of Mr. Feinberg. Apparently, no media will be allowed, either.
After meeting with Ms. Martin, we stopped by WLOX. We spoke briefly with News Director Brad Kessie, and at length with General Manager David Vincent. These good fellows obviously cannot take sides, but they have asked that we keep them informed of news. Dave Vincent and I had what I felt was a very productive and informative discussion. Brad Kessie mentioned to me that there has been a permit issued for a public gathering on Monday in the area of our Lighthouse. Heads up. Might be big...
The main obstruction here seems to be that GCCF (Feinberg) wonders that if casino revenues were up, how could tips be down? The first and most obvious reason to me is that our hotels were largely filled with bp boat people and clean-up people. Glad as we are to have had them here, they were not very smart gamblers and not very good tippers. Revenue up, tips down.
Consider this, our Coast casinos were reportedly averaging revenue up about 90,000/month each. That's about $60,000 slots and $30,000 Table Games. $30,000 divided by 30 days = $1000/day. $1000/day divided by 100 dealers = $10/dealer/shift. We have pointed out that if we deal blackjack for eight hours, we are handling many thousands of dollars in action, and a ten dollar more or less win over eight hours is totally insignificant to tips. There are obviously other factors involved. See above. We have information that some local restauranteurs have reported no losses, yet most of their staffs have been paid on loss of income.
All we ask is a fair look. GCCF stats still show that Mississippi has filed 10,000 fewer claims than any of our neighbors. Yet, of resolved claims, we are now being denied at almost 50%. Next closest is Louisiana at 30%. Perhaps we should still all move to Florida, 13% denied. Florida has had paid almost as many claims as we have totally filed, and has had denied only about half as many as us. And we're right here on the front lines of the blowout! Mississippi 40.0 filed, 9.4 paid, 9.1 denied; Florida 108.0 filed, 39.0 paid, 5.9 denied. Really?
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