As legislators play their final hands of cards in the poker game that is the Indiana General Assembly before it folds for the year on Wednesday, they need to find a way to come to the aid of the state’s 13 heavily challenged casinos.
Residing in a House-Senate conference committee is a comprehensive gambling bill (House Bill 1540) that would allow, among other things, Indiana’s casinos to finally break free from their charade of being called riverboats (most don’t sail anymore) and expand to land-based operations. The bill also would help casinos by reducing their wagering tax to be paid to the state from being based on 91.5 percent of gross receipts to 89.5 percent. It also builds in substantial financial support to the French Lick Springs Resort Casino and its grand historic neighbor, the West Baden Springs Hotel. As a concession to the state’s two racinos — Hoosier Park at Anderson and Indiana Grand at Shelbyville — live dealers would replace some of the current electronic table game machines beginning in 2021.
The bill has enjoyed wide support in the both Indiana House and Senate — having passed the House 76-19 and the Senate 36-13. Now conferees from both houses and both parties must reconcile differences between the versions passed. That reconciliation, of course, has to fit into a tight timetable before the Legislature, by law, must cease its business for the year by April 29.
The stakes are high. In fiscal year 2014, the 13 casinos brought in more than $653 million in taxes to support state and local governments, including being a major source of funding our property tax relief program. Those tax revenues arose from more than 19 million admissions across the 13 casinos in 2014 and from a $2.3 trillion gaming win — the money retained after prizes have been paid out to winning gamblers. As high as the tax revenue number sounds, though, comes the sobering fact that it was down 13.2 percent in 2014 from 2013.
Look east to know one major reason for falling revenues. According to Ernest Yelton, a former Clay County judge who now is executive director of the Indiana Gaming Commission, 2014 was the first complete year for four casinos in Ohio. That meant Ohioans who might have in earlier years crossed the river to visit state-line-hugging Hollywood Casino in Lawrenceburg, Rising Star in Rising Sun and Belterra in Florence (Switzerland County) now can stay at home to play. More racinos in Ohio are coming online this year, Yelton said in the Gaming Commission’s annual report. On the other side of the state, Illinois began an expansive installation of electronic gaming devices in bars and taverns — drawing more money away from Indiana casinos, such as Tropicana (formerly Casino Aztar) in Evansville and five casinos in northwest Indiana near Chicago.
Yelton, who plans to retire soon, foresaw that coming storm when he told The New York Times: “Most observers will say Indiana will never again regain the total numbers of dollars it was used to getting. I think the goal, more realistically, is to minimize the amount of dollars that is going to be lost.”
Still, Indiana ranked fourth in the nation among states in terms of gross gambling revenues and third in total taxes paid.
Some — perhaps including Gov. Mike Pence — will argue that the current bill is an expansion of gambling. Horrors. The canard in that argument is that, in incremental steps, some as large as approving the two racinos in 2007, some as small as a new Indiana lottery game, gambling has been expanding steadily in Indiana ever since the constitutional ban on gambling was lifted in 1988. From lottery tickets, to charity bingo, to pull-tabs, to slot machines and to table games, gaming has become an industry in Indiana that has not done overall harm to our society.
Going to a casino is a fun outing for millions of Hoosiers and visitors — feeding a one-armed bandit, trying to beat 21, seeking a royal flush, winning a couple of bucks on a nag and enjoying a darn nice steak with an adult beverage.
That this form of recreation also brings in trillions of dollars in business revenue, funds millions of dollars in taxes and provides more than 13,000 direct casino jobs and innumerable spinoff jobs together strongly suggest that legislature, as it leaves Indianapolis for another year, should look favorably on what it can do help Indiana’s casinos.