On Sunday, Monica Yant Kinney wrote a shocking story about the locals who make Bucks County's Parx Casino so "profitable." According to Parx, most of their clients live within a 20 mile radius of Street Road and come 3-4 times a week, losing $25-$30 a trip.

Today we get to meet one of Parx's regulars: a former construction worker who was sidelined due to injury but now has found his new profession as a casino player.

Anderson lives five minutes from the Bensalem slots box, which raked in $400 million in profit last year in a recession. Proximity, plus free valet parking, has turned the unemployed cement mason into a casino operator's dream.

Anderson, 31, pops in for 90 minutes here, three hours there. He plays to relax and to kill time when his kids are in school. He plays late at night when he can't sleep or at dawn while his wife dozes.

Anderson views playing the slots as a profession, a flextime job he can do in sweats while smoking.

"I treat it like a business," he tells me after we meet at the casino. "If this is what I have to do to make money, this is what I have to do."

Problem is that Anderson doesn't realize Steve Wynn's favorite quote: The only way to beat the house is to be the house.

(I'm speaking for myself here, not for any organization)

Hey guys. A number of folks have asked be to write about my experiences in jail yesterday with the other activists from Casino Free Philadelphia. Most questions have been focused on the "what was it like" track – how did they treat us, where were we locked up. That stuff was interesting and hard and frustrating, but let’s get through it quickly.

A short while after 6am Tuesday morning, fourteen protesters, including me, blocked the entrance to the Sugarhouse Casino construction site (or, as Casino Free Philadelphia likes to call it, the site of Neil Bluhm, the casino’s financier’s, future bankruptcy).

It’s hard to believe that today marks nine months to the day since a line-up of politicos from the Governor on down stood end to end in City Hall and declared the heart of Philadelphia as their target for the flailing casino industry. Employing every tactic in the book (including political threats and gaming board maneuvers), with a hearty dose of environmental racism toward Chinatown, Rendell and city leaders made it seem like there was no done deal like this done deal.

But after nine months, where have things gone?

The casino, in Dan’s colorful imagery, has now lurched to Strawbridge’s, its third attempted site, where it sits fallow today. No plans. No drawings. Nothing "on the back of a napkin" as Mayor Nutter said last fall, to show what this thing will look like, what it will offer Philadelphians, and how it will contribute to a desperate economy.

Is it telling that despite seeking PR for its support of last weekend’s International Championship bike race, Foxwoods gave up its promotional table to Arthur Ashe Youth Tennis Center – perhaps because there’s nothing to promote?

Is it telling that last week’s City Council session came and went with barely a mention of Foxwoods’ zoning permit for Strawbridge’s that has sat for over a month, while owners squabble?

And is it telling that with only two more Council sessions to go, neither Foxwoods nor the City has anything to show for all their boasting and posturing of a December 2009 opening.

At the same time, a number of things have happened that bodes poorly for Foxwoods: