{"id":15608,"date":"2015-02-25T13:05:17","date_gmt":"2015-02-25T21:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=15608"},"modified":"2015-02-25T13:05:17","modified_gmt":"2015-02-25T21:05:17","slug":"midwest-casino-follies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/midwest-casino-follies\/","title":{"rendered":"Midwest casino follies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Indiana<\/strong> municipalities caught a break<\/a> when the state House of Representatives<\/strong> voted against scrapping the state’s $3 admission tax, which goes to casino-hosting localities. That \"Dermody\"<\/a>keeps $200 million in the kitty of jurisdictions like LaPorte County<\/strong>, home to Boyd Gaming<\/strong>‘s Blue Chip<\/strong> riverboat. State Rep. Tom Dermody<\/strong> (R, right<\/em>) vowed to revisit the issue in 2016. However, the House did pass a bill chockful of goodies for casinos, including permission to move on land, an extension of a tax cut on free play, tax incentives for new construction and live dealers for the state’s two racinos. The bill passed overwhelmingly, although it still faces the obstacle that is Gov. Mike Pence<\/strong>‘s veto pen. (The prospect of live dealers at the tracks is one of the aspects that sticks in Pence’s gubernatorial craw.) The bill must also survive one more vote by the full House.<\/p>\n

In a peculiar flip-flop, the House initially amended the bill to remove the live table dealers<\/a>, 96-1, then put them back in, 76-22. Hoping against hope, state\u00a0Rep. Sean Eberhart<\/strong> (R) opined,\u00a0\u201cHopefully the governor will say, \u2018Hey, there is a lot of support for this, maybe I should give this a second look.\u2019\u201d (Pence’s apparent unconcern with competition from Ohio<\/strong> and Illinois<\/strong> is rather puzzling.) The governor’s position remained as clear as mud<\/a>. He sent his spokeswoman out to reiterate his opposition to an undefined “expansion” of Hoosier State gambling. Kara Brooks<\/strong> added that Pence “does not want to advantage one sector of the gaming industry over another.\u201d Since all Indiana casinos would have live table-game dealers under the law and could all theoretically operate on land, it’s difficult to see anybody getting the better end of a bill that levels the playing field.<\/p>\n

* An attempt to create a third type of casino in Iowa<\/strong> (in addition to regular ones and tribal casinos) got a cursory, 15-minute discussion<\/a> and no more from Hawkeye State\u00a0lawmakers. The bill is essentially an attempt in drag by Cedar Rapids<\/strong> to get the state government to give \"SEAL_IOWA\"<\/a>it the casino that the Iowa Racing & Gaming Commission<\/strong> wouldn’t let it have.\u00a0\u201cWe see this as a unique way of getting around the Racing and Gaming Commission\u2019s ruling,\u201d said Frank Chiodo<\/strong>, a lobbyist for Riverside Casino & Golf Course<\/strong>, one of two casinos that fears heavy cannibalization from Cedar Rapids. The bill would remove the approval of the casinos from the IRGC’s purview and put them under the Iowa Clean Indoor Air Act<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Somewhat disingenuously, state Rep. Ken Rizer<\/strong> said,\u00a0\u201cI understand that the members of the committee don\u2019t want to get into picking winners and losers when it comes to who gets casino licenses and that\u2019s not what this bill is about. What this bill is about is exploring the opportunity to create another category of license.\u201d Judging by the brevity of the hearing, committee members aren’t falling for that and, with both casino opponents and the Iowa Gaming Association<\/strong> opposed, the odds against it are long.<\/p>\n

* Casinos in Illinois have to brace themselves for another assault from the Legislature. State Rep. Robert Rita<\/strong> (D) is filing a pair of bills that would bring at least five new casinos — \"Rita\"<\/a>including one or more in Chicago<\/strong> — plus as many as eight racinos to the Land of Lincoln. There’s some uncertainty as to how many goodies would be doled out to the horsey set because Fairmount Park<\/strong> and nearby Casino Queen<\/strong> can’t agree to let Fairmount play in Casino Queen’s back yard. Also, lawmakers are at odds about about how new tax revenues earmarked for Collinsville<\/strong>, East St. Louis<\/strong> and Alton<\/strong> would be divvied up. For example, one proposal would give Collinsville as little as 10%, while another would up its take to 45%. (Both proposals are drastically lopsided.)<\/p>\n

We can brace ourselves for familiar arguments: Casinos will cite the existing predation of slot routes on their revenue base. Tracks will say they’re losing horsemen to other states with bigger purses. In the past, one could safely predict a legislative stalemate, but with Pat Quinn<\/strong> turned out of the governor’s mansion, there’s no sure thing anymore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Indiana municipalities caught a break when the state House of Representatives voted against scrapping the state’s $3 admission tax, which goes to casino-hosting localities. That keeps $200 million in the kitty of jurisdictions like LaPorte County, home to Boyd Gaming‘s … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60,117,190,58,68,86,71,33,111,25,31],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15608"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15608"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15609,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15608\/revisions\/15609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}