Opponents who spoke out two years ago say they are again ready to challenge proposals for a casino in Terre Haute.
“The community backlash will be just as strong, if not stronger” than in 2017, T.J. Hellmann, who handled publicity two years ago for the group Casino Free Vigo County, said Tuesday.
Hellmann called state-sanctioned gambling “a predatory industry” and said the community and the Indiana General Assembly made it clear two years ago they don’t feel casinos are a good fit for Terre Haute. “That remains true today,” he added.
Hellmann’s comments followed Monday’s announcement that Full House Resorts plans to launch a second bid to move unused gaming positions from its Rising Star Casino Resort in far southeastern Indiana to Terre Haute.
Some people were already speaking out in response to an announcement in late November about another casino venture. Terre Haute businessman Greg Gibson is a partner in a new company seeking to purchase two licenses in Gary and move one elsewhere, possibly to Terre Haute.
“Casino advocates seem to be saying that a casino is a license to print money, but it isn’t,” Sam Martland, professor of history and Latin American studies at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, wrote on tribstar.com in response to the report about Gibson’s plans.
“It seems like we are supposed to believe that a casino would bring a lot of people from other places to spend money in Terre Haute,” he added. “Does that make any sense?”
Like Hellmann, Martland was among local residents who spoke against the original proposal for a satellite casino.
Robert Guell, economics professor at Indiana State University, called the issue “painfully obvious and completely irrelevant to economists.”
Money wagered by gamblers would be spent anyway at restaurants, bars, theaters and stores, he said.
“Casinos do little for overall economic activity in a community because of this ‘local substitution’ effect,” Guell said. “I don’t oppose a casino just like I don’t oppose a third Walmart, a second Menards or a fifth Starbucks. None of them do anything other than change where the same money is spent.”
Guell does not believe Terre Haute would win in any competition for a satellite casino.
“Someone will push for one betweeen Cloverdale and Plainfield,” he said. “That is where an economically consequential one could go. It would draw from the western suburbs of Indy and from Terre Haute. As it is, Shelbyville and Anderson (home to Indiana Grand and Hoosier Park race tracks and casinos) are about the same distance from Brownsburg/Avon/Plainfield as Terre Haute.”
Kevin Christ, associate professor of economics at Rose-Hulman, concurred.
“I have to be convinced that, given a choice, people in central Illinois who want to spend their evening in a room full of slot machines will drive 90 miles east to Terre Haute instead of 90 miles west to St. Louis,” he said.
Bloomington area residents might opt for French Lick instead of Terre Haute, Christ added.
“I am skeptical,” he said, calling a casino “a regressive tax with neon lights” in the sense that some local wealth from mostly middle class citizens is transferred to casino shareholders and business partners.
Offered an opportunity to comment on opposition to casinos and the observations of economists, Alex Stolyar, vice president and chief development officer of Full House Resorts, said simply, “We remain committed to Terre Haute and welcome the opportunity to compete for (a local casino).”