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Hollywood Gaming's system has intercepted more than $80K in unpaid child support
By ROBERT CONNELLY
AUSTINTOWN
If you win more than $1,200 at Hollywood Gaming at Mahoning Valley Race Course, your name is run through a computer system while you fill out a tax withholding form.
That system at the Austintown facility brought in $81,789 for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services from Sept. 15, the VIP pre-opening event, to March 16. State tax debt of $55,316, also was collected at Hollywood Gaming. The federal tax rate is 25 percent for winnings of $1,200 or more while there is a 4 percent state tax on winnings of $600 or higher. Gambling losses are tax-deductible on the federal level but not on the state level.
All racinos, from Sept. 15, 2014, to Feb. 3, 2015, collected $455,475 for the state’s JFS department while bringing in $239,539 in state debt. Hollywood Gaming in Austintown was the last of the seven racinos to open.
The same program is in place at Ohio’s four casinos.
“Since the program began in September 2014, we have intercepted more than $1.1 million from 625 non-custodial parents,” said Benjamin Johnson, JFS spokesman. “We’re very pleased with the program, and we’re pleased that we have been able to collect those winnings from the parents that owe child support.”
Johnson said the program, referred to as “the casino/racino intercept program,” was done with the Ohio Lottery before the racinos opened. It has to be at the threshold of taxing for the name of the winner to be run.
“We worked hard to come up with a program that would be easy for them to administer and would be effective,” Johnson said. He further said that it works “in tandem with the tax withholding system.”
John Caroline, administrator of the Mahoning County Child Support Enforcement Agency, said $50,055, from Sept. 15 to March 4, has been received locally from facilities statewide. That amount was assigned to 34 cases, “unless money owed on the case was assigned to the state due to public assistance,” he detailed.
“The money allows the family to purchase necessities and consumer goods,” he said in an email. “These purchases then create a trickle-down effect on the local economy for jobs and possibly sales tax, in addition to simply helping with the family’s overall financial well-being.”
Jim Davis, chairman of the Austintown Board of Trustees, supports the system.
“That’s helping the mothers, the fathers that are supposed to be receiving that and helping that child, and I think that’s a wonderful thing,” he said, noting that he pays child support.
But he also said it is troublesome that “there are mothers or fathers that are going to the racino and spending money while they owe child support ... Why are you doing that?”
He continued, “They’ve been able to recoup that money [from winners], but imagine the amount of people that lose [and owe child support].”