To legislators in numerous states, legalized gambling appears like a fairly sweet deal: Casinos are seemingly guaranteed money-makers, and state governments have an chance to reap a chunk of their income through taxation or profit-sharing agreements. Finest of all, citizens volunteer to give their dollars to casinos. Quite a few of them do it for entertaining. Few people like love paying their taxes, but everyone likes to play games.

To get a even though, that’s how factors worked in Delaware. As of final year, gambling revenue was the state’s fourth-biggest income stream, beating out its notoriously lenient corporate taxation system. Items have been going so effectively that the Delaware Property signed off on a strategy to authorize casino expansion.

But experienced gamblers understand that the greatest highs frequently precede the worst crashes. That is exactly what has happened in Delaware more than the past handful of months, exactly where the state government is now moving forward with plans to grant an $8 million bailout package to its newly broke gambling business.

The issue for Delaware is the fact that reaping gambling income is actually a little too sweet of a deal. Soon after the 2008 financial collapse dried up public coffers across the nation, neighboring states like Pennsylvania and Maryland turned to casino revenue as a way raising funds without hiking taxes. In undertaking so, they place themselves in direct competition with Delaware casinos for the focus of gambling enthusiasts.

Slot revenue collapsed, dropping by about $47 million in 5 months. Dover Downs, the greatest casino within the state and one particular if its greatest private employers, warned of balance sheet catastrophe unless Delaware cut taxes on the sector. Taking an $8 million bailout out from the state’s $21.3 million surplus was evidently a a lot more palatable answer.

“The administration has not supported altering the tax structure permanently, but recognizes that forcing the casinos to bear more expenses will make them much less competitive at a time after they have to be a lot more competitive with casinos in surrounding states,” a spokesperson for Democratic governor Jack Markell told CBS.

But a bailout might only delay the inevitable.

“This is applying a Band-Aid to a bullet-shot wound,” investment banker Jay Masurekar lately told Delaware Online. Even though $8 million temporarily stems the bleeding, it does not address the oversupply of casinos inside the mid-Atlantic states.

Oddly adequate, that hasn’t stopped State Rep. Dennis Williams, a Democrat, from proposing a law that would add additional casinos towards the country’s second-smallest state. The bill awaits consideration by the Basic Assembly’s gaming committee.