Full House Resorts and Spectacle Entertainment are jostling for position in Terre Haute—provided that Vigo County voters approve a casino for the city. But will it beat nearby Danville to the punch? “Pending a positive outcome on 
the referendum, I believe we will be ready to be aggressive with our timeline and ready to partner with the state … and the chosen casino operator to move forward quickly,” said Terre Haute Mayor Duke Bennett. “Our gaming commission is not going to be preoccupied with trying to license casinos in [other cities]. There’s just one casino on the table,” agreed Indiana Gaming Insight Publisher Ed Feigenbaum, alluding to the scrumdown of casinos and racinos rushing for approval in the Land of Lincoln.
Vermilion Advantage CEO Vicki Haugen says as many as six casino operators could vie for Danville, but she’s got to brush up on her casino history: Chicago, she said, would be sought by “the real big guys, the Harrah’s [and] the Bally’s.” While a cash-hungry Illinois government is trying to rush to get shovels in the ground, applications aren’t due until Oct. 28 and could take as long as a year to approve. Says Feigenbaum, “If you get a casino in Danville at all, without even looking at what’s happening in Vigo County, it’s going to be a very small facility.” Indeed, the two seem at risk of canceling each other out, budgeted at $100 million and creating 400 jobs to (in Danville’s roseate projection) twice that number. As would-be operators prepare their paperwork, it would behoove them to forecast conservatively.
* Horseracing in Virginia comes in a box, as ‘historical racing’ is the new leisure craze. “Virginia is boring,” complained retiree Annie Randolph as she and a thousand others queued up for the opening of Rosie’s Gaming Emporium in Richmond. Despite having 90,000 race videos upon which to 
draw, the machines at Rosie’s can easily be reconfigured to display cherries and sevens, and all the other iconography we associate with slot play. A 600-machine Rosie’s at New Kent grossed $58 million in its first month, so there’s some serious money to be made while the Lege agonizes over full-fledged casinos. “I’m afraid of us doing too much, and it appears the locations are predominantly African-American areas that are close to impoverished communities,” frets Del. Lamont Bagby (D, left). Whenever something is perceived as undesirable, it’s the black communities that get stuck with it. What else is new? Meanwhile, fattened by ‘historical racing,’ real-life horseracing resumes at Colonial Downs next month.
* Pennsylvania‘s lust for gambling revenue knows no end. Not one of the five satellite casinos has opened and yet the Lege is already panting for another round of auctions (even though the haul from the first round was disappointing). There’s a legal limit, however, to how much the market can be stretched. Look at the map and see how little real estate is still casino-eligible.
* Obscure Mississippi operator Gulfside Casino Entertainment aced out 
Warner Gaming and several tribal heavyweights when it came to getting endorsement from officials to build a casino in Pope County in Arkansas. However, Gulfside is still a very long way from the finishing line, especially since Pope County voters have shown themselves to be adverse to casino gambling.
* Meanwhile, gray-market video-gambling machines in Nebraska are being ogled as a source of—what else?—tax dollars. “These machines are thinly disguised slot machines,” opined former state Sen. Loran Schmit, who thinks the state could realize $200 million to $300 million in property-tax relief via a levy on video gambling. You will see a massive increase in those machines in Nebraska and tens of millions of dollars will be moved through those 
machines,” he says. Schmit would know: “I operated legal video lottery machines in the state 35 years ago,” before the machines were outlawed. “It’s not a question of whether we have gambling or not,” Schmit opines. “It is a question of whether we will have untaxed, uncontrolled, unregulated gambling or whether Nebraska will have legal, taxed, regulated and controlled gambling. I have met gamblers who stopped gambling because of losses. I have never met one who stopped gambling because of excessive taxes.” Touché.
* Mohegan Gaming & Entertainment has a lot of irons in the fire, from South Korea to Atlantic City, and just added one more. It has entered into a joint venture to pursue a casino-resort license at the former Hellinkon airport, in Greece. MGE is also narrowing its Japan focus to Tomakomai, budgeted as high as $4.5 billion. Closer to home, MGE reiterated its commitment to East Windsor, despite some recent flirtation with the Bridgeport city fathers.
* Sign of the apocalypse? Online casinos have taken over from offshore call centers are the largest tenant of office space in the Philippines. They’re also employing 138,000 expat Chinese. The Internet casinos “are expanding aggressively and they pick locations faster while the outsourcing industry is stalling,” reports Bloomberg. Well, if there’s one industry we don’t mind seeing hit the shoals, it’s offshore call centers. There’s nothing worse than trying to dispute charges on your credit card with someone who doesn’t speak your language.
* T-Rex racing may never displace the Sport of Kings but it’s catchy as hell and you give your spirits a lift as you wrap up another hard-fought week.
