Comments on: March 11 roundup

By: Hugo S. Cunningham

Hugo S. Cunningham — Thu, 12 Mar 2020 16:54:36 +0000

Montgomery MD liquor monopoly–
Can they simply jack up their monopoly liquor prices? Or are they already so high that leakage from the black market will cancel out higher per-unit revenue?

By: mike

mike — Thu, 12 Mar 2020 13:42:20 +0000

In reply to PaulB.

Disagree, Mr. B.
At least in Suffolk County (Long Island) the OTB was famous as a patronage dump. Politicians, their supporters, relatives, etc., would draw salaries there on a “semi-no-show” basis, and lots of money would be spent on Stuff.

When politicians view a government operation, they do not see it as an operational entity that does things and should do those things well, but more like a budget, with money to spend on patronage.

Suffolk OTB miscalculated, and larded up expenditures to the point that the operation went into the red.

Had cooler heads prevailed, the OTB would have been run in such a way that it barely squeaked by every year, while maximizing available patronage. This was not done, and thus the tsimmes.

By: PaulB

PaulB — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 14:00:28 +0000

It’s easy to understand why OTB lost money in New York as there were “unlicensed” competitors in the private sector that offered better service with lower overhead. To lose money on a monopoly sale of liquor takes a special skill.