My Poker Game Online

A floor collapsed into a V shape Friday at the construction site of a new Ohio casino, sending workers sliding to the ground, leaving one worker with serious injuries and hurting at least a dozen others.

The collapse occurred shortly before 8 a.m. as a crew was pouring a section of concrete floor at the Horseshoe Casino Cincinnati site, Steve Rosenthal, of co-developer Rock Gaming LLC, said Friday. It came just weeks after a similar accident at a Cleveland casino with the same developers.

The male worker with serious injuries was downgraded from fair condition at a Cincinnati hospital Friday night, several hours after the collapse. Authorities had said earlier that there were no life-threatening injuries.

Shouts could be heard on a 911 call right after the collapse as the caller told the dispatcher “we’ve got one guy that’s in desperate position.”

“There’s about 20 guys just fell through the floor pour. You’ve got to get down here as quick as possible. …They fell about 15, 20 foot. Hurry,” he said.

“We’ve got men under a beam as well. We got to get this beam off of them.”

Rosenthal told reporters at a news conference that it was too soon to determine what caused the collapse.

Fire Chief Richard Braun, who was one of the first on the scene after the collapse, said that a beam supporting the floor “sheared away” and the floor came down while the workers were on top of it.

“They basically rode the V down,” Braun said. No one was underneath the 60-foot-by-60-foot section of floor.

The injured were sent to hospitals with what appeared to be mostly bruises and bumps, and possibly some broken bones, the fire chief said. All workers were accounted for, according to Rosenthal.

The man in serious condition is at Bethesda North, and the only worker from the collapse at the hospital, said Joe Kelley of the TriHealth system. The system’s Good Samaritan Hospital treated and released two workers.

Ten workers were treated at University Hospital, said spokesman Matt Kramer, with seven released and three that stayed overnight for monitoring of non-life-threatening injuries.

Neither Kelley nor Kramer had details about the injuries.

Jo Ann Davidson, who chairs the Ohio Casino Control Commission, said she knew of one worker having a broken elbow and another, a broken hip.

Jessie Folmar, a spokeswoman for Cincinnati-based Messer Construction Co., said the company was trying to learn what happened.

“Our top priority is to ensure everyone at our jobsites can return home safely to their families at the end of each day,” Messer’s president and chief executive Tom Keckeis said in a statement. “We have stringent safety processes and protocols in place to ensure our jobsites remain safe and our structures secure.”

Messer has a clean safety record with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration since 2006, according to information from the agency’s database. Its last Ohio incident was that year, when it was penalized for four serious violations and paid a penalty of $3,125. One involved a lack of adequate fall protection for workers.

OSHA inspectors, as well as investigators from the state, were looking into the accident. The developers said work won’t resume until the construction team and authorities say it is safe.

The collapse occurred on what will be the casino’s second floor, said Jason Mullins, business manager for a union representing ironworkers on the project, but not the workers who were hurt. The framework was more than one-third complete, Mullins said.

Mullins said some of the union’s workers were at the site and saw at least part of the collapse.

“They were shaken up, but they were not injured and they worked to help those who were,” he said. “No one was underneath the floor, or there could have been lives lost.”

The casino is being developed by Rock Gaming in partnership with Caesar’s Entertainment. The same team is behind a casino project in downtown Cleveland where a garage partially collapsed on Dec. 16. A 60-foot-by-60-foot second-level section of the parking deck gave way while concrete was being poured. No one was injured.

There is “absolutely zero connection” between the collapse in Cincinnati and the accident in Cleveland, Rosenthal said. “These are two different construction management companies, two different contractors, two different sites, two different areas.”

Rock Gaming spokeswoman Jennifer Kulczycki said the concrete work being done Friday was “a regularly scheduled pour.”

“There was absolutely no acceleration of the work schedule,” Rosenthal said.

Davidson said she sees no link between the two accidents and does not believe casino construction is being rushed in Ohio.

“They’re not working overtime shifts. Actually, they’re on a regular work schedule, they have a well-known local construction company … which has done significant work in the Cincinnati area,” she said.

The commission plans to closely follow the investigation into the accident, she said.

Horseshoe Casino Cincinnati is a $400 million development under construction in the northeast corner of the city’s center and is expected to open in spring 2013, an official with the company told an Ohio House panel at a hearing this week.

The casino is expected to attract 6 million visitors a year and create 1,700 jobs, said Lee Dillard, vice president of finance for the Horseshoe Casino Cleveland. It will feature three outward-facing restaurants, about 2,000 slot machines, 85 table games and a 31-table World Series of Poker room.

Casino development was touted during a statewide legalization campaign in 2009 for the immediate boost it would give to Ohio’s economy, particularly through the temporary construction jobs needed to build the four new facilities in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus and Toledo. According to a recent report from the Associated General Contractors of America, construction jobs rose in Ohio this past year — from 163,400 in December 2010 to 168,600 last month.

Nationwide, OSHA statistics show there were nearly 196,000 job-related injuries in 2010 in the construction industry, almost four injuries for every 100 fulltime workers. In Ohio, there were 21 fatal injuries in the construction industry in 2010, the agency said.

So it finally happened. On Saturday, Prime Minister Julia Gillard unveiled her government’s proposal to tackle problem gambling.

And because it fell short of what he expected, independent Andrew Wilkie announced soon after that he was withdrawing his support for the Government.

What happened next was an avalanche of recrimination, second-guessing and political condemnation. Over the past few days we’ve been inundated with opinions and criticisms from every side of the political divide, not to mention anti-gambling and pro-reform advocates (and yes, there is a difference).

Senator Nick Xenophon: “How can you respect someone who backstabs the very person that backed her into office?”

Senator Richard di Natale: “It’s a spineless announcement and represents a cave in to vested interests.”

Opposition leader Tony Abbott: “(Gillard is) not so much a good negotiator as a great deceiver.”
The list goes on.

Now, anyone who knows me knows of my commitment to real poker machine reform. And yes, I am disappointed that the reform proposal championed by Wilkie did not get up. I firmly believe that mandatory pre-commitment is the best approach for reforming the poker machine industry, better even than $1 maximum bets; in fact, I believe that the combined approach that was recommended by the Joint Select Committee in May last year, the “hybrid” solution of pre-commitment and $1 machines, was the optimal solution.

But this outpouring of condemnation for the Government’s actions and counter-proposal disturbs me. Shortly after Gillard’s announcement on Saturday, I published an analysis of her proposal and where I thought we should go from here. Two days later, I have yet to see any form of analysis in the mainstream media that looks at anything other than the political ramifications of this situation. Even Malcolm Farnsworth’s analysis on The Drum was purely political in nature.

We’re missing the point. This should not be about politics; it should be about poker machines, and making a difference to the people who play them. We’re barking up the wrong tree.

The fact is that there is a reform proposal. It does include the installation of pre-commitment technology on all poker machines in Australia. And it does not rule out mandatory pre-commitment, but will utilise a trial to inform the process.

I may be politically naïve, but the way I see it is this:

Should the “Wilkie proposal” have been tested in Parliament, as suggested by Xenophon? No. If the numbers weren’t there, then there would be no reforms at all.

Should the Government have gone with $1 maximum bets, as proposed by the Greens? No. Tony Abbott’s recent confirmation that he would oppose such a proposal makes this redundant.

Would we be better off with the Coalition? No. In addition to opposing $1 maximum bets, the Opposition also opposes mandatory pre-commitment.

Should reform be left solely to the states and territories, as it always has been? No. Every state and territorial government opposes mandatory pre-commitment.

Poker machine reform is on the national agenda; Wilkie put it there and it’s not going to go away. And rather than drop the issue altogether, the Gillard Government is still planning on pursuing reform, only they are no longer being forced to do so.

The important thing now is to focus on the future. It’s all well and good to sit back and take cheap shots at the Government for their actions, but that will help exactly no-one. I am far more interested in seeing these reforms legislated and actioned than I am in howling along with the chorus.

From here on, the trial is the key. According to the Government’s proposal, it will be overseen by an independent body, and the results will be analysed by the Productivity Commission. It is crucial that this trial not only goes ahead, but proceeds with a high degree of integrity and transparency. This is not impossible.

This trial may be a delaying tactic by the Government, and it may be a capitulation to the demands of the industry. I’m not stupid; at least, not stupid enough to overlook that. But there are a couple of points that most people have missed.

First, the Productivity Commission recommended a trial of mandatory pre-commitment technology. Their recommendation was not that such a trial be used to determine whether or not to proceed, but rather to get the system right before rolling it out across the country.

So if the Productivity Commission is overseeing the trial results, as the Government has stated, then I have a fairly good idea of what their recommendation will be.

And second, these reforms take away most of the arguments that the clubs and pubs have been using to prop up their misinformation campaigns. They won’t be able to point to point to implementation costs, for the technology will already have been rolled out. And they won’t be able to ask for a trial, for it will already have been run.

These reforms aren’t perfect, but they are a start… and this is the first time that poker machine reform has ever been addressed at a federal level. If the states and territories think they can do better, let them prove it now.

Two casino consulting firms that specialize in preparing community financial impact studies are vying to help Park City prepare for potentially hosting a future state casino site.

Mayor Steve Pannell announced at Thursday night’s City Council session that informative interviews with both firms took place Wednesday night at City Hall, and he expects a selection will be announced next week.

The move comes on the heels of a delegation from Park City that met with Gov. Pat Quinn’s legal counsel on Jan. 11 that Pannell called “productive and very worthwhile.” The casino issue is expected to come up during the new legislative session which begins Jan. 31.

Pannell said a study, both positive and negative, is essential in measuring a casino’s financial impact that a gambling casino could have on Park City and its neighboring communities of Gurnee and Waukegan.

“Some obvious impacts would have to do with providing expanded public safety, or the involvement of police and fire services. New infrastructure such as roads, water and sewers to accommodate such a casino will also have a significant financial impact,” he said.

“A financial consultant will be very helpful to us in assessing these unique impacts that we and our neighbors have never encountered before, particularly since we are committed to sharing profits with them,”

Pannell said planning for a Park City casino, that was designated by the General Assembly last year, but not yet authorized by the governor, is a major undertaking that must be done with care and compassion for both residents and neighbors.

“It’s like putting a complicated puzzle together. Hiring a financial consultant may give us an advantage over a competitor since we will be in a better position of knowing what will actually work and cost based upon the consultant’s experience with others,” Pannell said.

Now that Waukegan has thrown its hat into the ring also hoping to attract a casino — the same license that Park City seeks — Pannell was asked if the city plans to hire a lobbyist such as Waukegan has done.

“We don’t need to spend $8,000 of taxpayers’ money to hire a casino lobbyist. We already have one, and it hasn’t cost us a cent,” he said.

When asked to explain, Pannell said the city’s private casino developer, Park City Gaming, LLC., has been providing this service for the city in Springfield for some time now.