Description of missing item: Slant Top (attached stool) or maybe (with over 2,000 of ‘em it’s hard to remember) it was an Upright (no stool – player must stand while losing money). Credit meter (LED display) – the thing that keeps track of the payouts – only works intermittently. And the drop bucket – where excess coins are diverted from the hopper to the customer – had been disconnected (it was always a lark to see the payee scrambling about on the floor to retrieve his winnings before everybody else did).
If you know where it is, contact Caesars Atlantic City.
Or the City of Lakewood.
Turns out news out of New Jersey recently reveals a couple of one-armed bandits are on the loose – as in lost – from a storage unit. ‘Gotta be around somewhere’ so the records were modified accordingly. For this oversight the “opulent and elaborate” Caesars with the “latest and greatest” slots offering “life-changing mega jackpots” was fined $5,000.
That’s a five, with three zeros.
A certain football player was fined $50,000 for not talking to the media. That’s a lot of zeros. Not to mention a lot of Skittles.
Evidently the 2×4 gambling enforcement division on the Boardwalk wanted it to hurt. So they lowered the board, and the boom. So it would never happen again. Lesson learned and all that. Can’t keep track of your slots, you pay.
Lakewood doesn’t have slots. But it has casinos. From which the hopper diverts gambling excise taxes to evidently an untraceable account called the City’s General Fund.
According to Public Disclosure Request #15-0152, “‘Revenues from the city gambling tax are required to be used primarily for the purpose of gambling enforcement. Case law has clarified ‘primarily’ means ‘first to be used’ for gambling law enforcement purposes to the extent necessary for the city. The remaining funds may be used for any general government purpose’ (p.58 of the Lakewood City Council agenda packet for November 17, 2014).
“For the fiscal years 2013 and 2014, what amount of money from city gambling tax was used for the purpose of gambling enforcement; what was the expenditure related to gambling enforcement for; and what amount of money remained that was not used then for gambling enforcement?”
Per the City’s Finance Department, the answer, with regards gambling tax money: “the City does not track its specific use.”
