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Gaming the System
By Matthew Teague
I MET FOR lunch this spring with two Foxwoods casino bosses, who arrived at the restaurant flanked by as many public relations handlers. The handlers, though, sat smiling and silent through most of the meal: Nobody can outsell casino executives when they’re on a roll.
“It’s not just a gambling mecca,” said Dave Coskey, Foxwoods’ Philadelphia coordinator at the time. “There will be restaurants. Entertainment. Shopping.”
A moment later he added, “We’ve proposed a garage that’s actually larger than it needs to be, for us.”
And traffic wouldn’t slow down because of the casino, he said. It would speed up.
Coskey and Jim Dougherty, Foxwoods’ director of operations, are both big, likeable guys with strong Philadelphia connections, who look like Eagles fans wearing expensive suits. They seemed purpose-built for their task: to wedge a casino onto Philadelphia’s waterfront without stirring up the rabble in the surrounding neighborhoods.
“A group that I met with from South Philadelphia — literally, you could throw a stone from their house and throw it into our site — and they were very, very nice,” Coskey said cheerfully, “but a little hostile.”
Opponents and proponents argue over what sort of impact gambling will have on Philadelphia, but everybody agrees that impact will be massive: Between Foxwoods in the south and SugarHouse in the north, more than 10 million people will visit the casinos each year, generating three-quarters of a billion dollars in revenue. Just building the sites themselves will cost more than a billion dollars.
It’s an unprecedented endeavor: Philadelphia will be the largest city in America to open casinos. But Coskey and Dougherty are gambling industry veterans; they’re confident.
Coskey (who has since become the vice president for marketing for the Borgata casino in Atlantic City) helped bring casinos to Mississippi, back in the early 1990s. I told him that I grew up in Vicksburg, on the Mississippi River, which for the prior century or so had been known as a crucial Civil War site. The whole town, like Philadelphia, is a historical treasure. But after 1993, when riverboat gambling arrived, any mention of Vicksburg brought forth an inevitable response: “Been to the boats?” Gambling had swallowed up the town’s identity. I asked Coskey whether casinos in Philadelphia would eventually overshadow the city’s reputation as, for instance, the home of the Liberty Bell.
Coskey laughed. “My background is marketing,” he said. “So gosh, that would be great, if you could build up your brand that much.”
So the gambling industry isn’t just enormous, but carnivorous — casinos will eat Philadelphia if they can, and some people worry that they’ve got the money to do it. “I’d say that’s a pretty legitimate complaint,” says a staff member of one legislator involved in the deal — a pro-gambling legislator. “It’s even got a name — ‘gambling creep.’ Today it’s slots, but tomorrow … ”
Despite the stakes, slots arrived here in the quietest way possible. There was no public say in the decision to bring gambling to Pennsylvania, and the law, once passed, ensured that local feelings wouldn’t get in the way.
“It’s not just a gambling mecca,” said Dave Coskey, Foxwoods’ Philadelphia coordinator at the time. “There will be restaurants. Entertainment. Shopping.”
A moment later he added, “We’ve proposed a garage that’s actually larger than it needs to be, for us.”
And traffic wouldn’t slow down because of the casino, he said. It would speed up.
Coskey and Jim Dougherty, Foxwoods’ director of operations, are both big, likeable guys with strong Philadelphia connections, who look like Eagles fans wearing expensive suits. They seemed purpose-built for their task: to wedge a casino onto Philadelphia’s waterfront without stirring up the rabble in the surrounding neighborhoods.
“A group that I met with from South Philadelphia — literally, you could throw a stone from their house and throw it into our site — and they were very, very nice,” Coskey said cheerfully, “but a little hostile.”
Opponents and proponents argue over what sort of impact gambling will have on Philadelphia, but everybody agrees that impact will be massive: Between Foxwoods in the south and SugarHouse in the north, more than 10 million people will visit the casinos each year, generating three-quarters of a billion dollars in revenue. Just building the sites themselves will cost more than a billion dollars.
It’s an unprecedented endeavor: Philadelphia will be the largest city in America to open casinos. But Coskey and Dougherty are gambling industry veterans; they’re confident.
Coskey (who has since become the vice president for marketing for the Borgata casino in Atlantic City) helped bring casinos to Mississippi, back in the early 1990s. I told him that I grew up in Vicksburg, on the Mississippi River, which for the prior century or so had been known as a crucial Civil War site. The whole town, like Philadelphia, is a historical treasure. But after 1993, when riverboat gambling arrived, any mention of Vicksburg brought forth an inevitable response: “Been to the boats?” Gambling had swallowed up the town’s identity. I asked Coskey whether casinos in Philadelphia would eventually overshadow the city’s reputation as, for instance, the home of the Liberty Bell.
Coskey laughed. “My background is marketing,” he said. “So gosh, that would be great, if you could build up your brand that much.”
So the gambling industry isn’t just enormous, but carnivorous — casinos will eat Philadelphia if they can, and some people worry that they’ve got the money to do it. “I’d say that’s a pretty legitimate complaint,” says a staff member of one legislator involved in the deal — a pro-gambling legislator. “It’s even got a name — ‘gambling creep.’ Today it’s slots, but tomorrow … ”
Despite the stakes, slots arrived here in the quietest way possible. There was no public say in the decision to bring gambling to Pennsylvania, and the law, once passed, ensured that local feelings wouldn’t get in the way.
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