The Jaffe Briefing - October 19, 2021
STATEWIDE – Football, alone, is glorious fun. Add in some legalized sports betting, and now New Jersey has a $1 billion-a-month industry. That’s right, New Jersey became the first state in the nation to top $1 billion worth of bets as football kicked off in September. The nine casinos and three racetracks raked in $1.01 billion, with $82 million in hefty commissions. The Meadowlands Racetrack was the big winner here, with $41 million of those profits. Two great things occurred to spark this revenue haul: The U.S. Supreme Court allowed New Jersey in 2018 to launch sports gambling and smartphone apps make it easy for a legal adult to place a bet. Add a heavy heaping of advertising and – voila! – $1 billion a month.
STATEWIDE – What an ideal time for a ballot question to somehow expand legal sports betting and gin up even more revenue. And – hey – wouldn’t you know it? There’s a question on the November ballot, asking voters if we can also bet on in-state college sports, like the classic Rutgers v. Seton Hall basketball games. You may recall, or not, that when sports betting was legalized, there was a stipulation that we could not bet on New Jersey college teams. This ballot question is especially important for the 2025 NCAA Men’s Basketball Regional Tournament, set to be played Newark and create wheelbarrows of cash. The question is controversial, however, with a Stockton poll showing voters could likely reject the plan. And that would be terrible for us, with big plans to wager on Rowan’s women volleyball, currently 18-4.
TRENTON – New Jerseyans scream and yell about taxes, but we are really good at writing those damn checks. There’s plenty of warm appreciation from the state Treasury Department, noting revenues through the end of September were up more than 30% compared to the same period last year, NJ Spotlight reports. But there is concern – as there always is – as the bean counters don’t believe this windfall of cash can continue on and on. Why? The state will soon be covering the costs for all these fancy new progressive programs, like more tax breaks for retirement income and college savings. That’ll be paid through our income, sales and corporate business taxes - the state’s top sources of cash. Can the happy days continue just for another year? Please?
BRIEFING BREATHER
The oldest “your mom” joke was discovered on a 3,500-year-old Babylonian tablet.
TRENTON – Expect an impressive whiskey selection, as well as a great place to hob-nob. ROI-NJ is reporting on a new restaurant in Trenton that the chef hopes you’ll actually want to visit. It’s called The Lobby Club, which opened on E. Front Street on Friday. And it’s intentionally exclusive, as muckety-mucks will be required to pay dearly for access. There are five levels of membership that require a one-time initiation fee of $500 to $10,000 — but also a monthly charge of up to $750 on top of pricey food and drink. And this place – featuring its own fancy crest – obviously caters to Trenton power brokers and politicians, with weekday hours only, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Lots of perks for the “platinum” and “gold” members, who can use a fancy workspace on the second floor in an effort to impress others. It’s all a great concept, perhaps perfect for DC. But with limited days in which state legislators are actually in Trenton, who is this restrictive place targeting? We’ll wait until the “tarnished silver” membership option becomes available.
IN OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS
NEW YORK – The famous Charging Bull statue on Wall Street now has a pal across the street. A seven-foot statue of Harambe the Gorilla – famously shot and killed when he picked up a three-year-old who wandered into his cage at the Cincinnati Zoo in 2016 – now sits in Bowling Green Park. The installer, Sapien.Network, also spread 10,000 bananas around the Charging Bull. There’s a political message, of course: Wall Street has gone "bananas" in expanding the disparity of wealth between the top 1% of the population and the rest of the country. Harambe is now a viral meme, with a separate message about the unfairness of keeping primates in captivity. Lots of streetscape messaging here, as people hustle along to work, focused on the 9 a.m. meeting with the boss.
THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Big Tex quickly became No Tex on this day in 2012, when the 52-foot iconic statue is destroyed by fire during the final days of the state fair.
WORD OF THE DAY
Nomenclature – [NOH-mun-klay-cher] – noun
Definition: A system of names or naming for things, especially in science.
Example: There’s not a lot of “park” on the Garden State Parkway, but the nomenclature means nothing to motorists.
WIT OF THE DAY
“To be successful you don't need to do extraordinary things, you just need to do ordinary things extraordinarily well.”
-Jim Rohn
BIDEN BLURB
"Given a fair shot, given a fair chance, Americans have never, ever, ever, ever let their country down. Never. Never. Ordinary people like us. Who do extraordinary things."
– Joe Biden
WEATHER IN A WORD
Breezy