INDIANAPOLIS | The fate of Indiana's gaming industry and the 14,000 Hoosiers it employs may hinge on decisions made this summer by a small group of state lawmakers.
The General Assembly's Interim Study Committee on Public Policy is tasked with assessing current and future competitive threats to Indiana's 11 riverboats, including the casinos in Hammond, East Chicago, Gary and Michigan City, and the two gaming centers at central Indiana horse racing tracks, known as racinos.
At stake is an industry generating more than $1 billion a year in taxes and fees for the state and local governments.
The panel must determine what effects potential changes to the state's existing gaming laws might have on the viability, attendance and revenues of casinos and racinos. It must recommend the best course for the future of gaming in the state.
"This is an opportunity to really look at all the gaming facilities and their ideas on what they think they need to be competitive in Indiana," said state Rep. Tom Dermody, R-LaPorte, chairman of the study committee.
Dermody said he's especially interested in new ideas and new technology, from live dealers at the racinos to mobile gaming devices allowing bets to be placed anywhere on a casino's property.
He's even willing to listen to state Rep. Alan Morrison, R-Terre Haute, whose plan to legalize sports wagering in Indiana, if authorized by the federal government, didn't go anywhere during the 2014 legislative session.
"It has to be about more than just tax cuts," Dermody said. "We have to be willing to look at everything."
Indiana casinos, which thrived for years by attracting players from neighboring states, now are threatened on all sides.
Illinois lawmakers are considering approving a massive Chicago casino plus four more, including a south suburban casino. That's on top of the 10 existing Illinois riverboat casinos and slot machines in seemingly every bar and restaurant in the state.
In Michigan, a tribal casino located just north of the Indiana state line has asked federal permission to open a satellite casino near South Bend. Ohio's new land-based casinos and racinos are crushing the three Indiana casinos on the Ohio River near Cincinnati.
Dermody believes even those Indiana lawmakers opposed to gaming expansion on principle might be willing to vote for changes when they understand how much tax money and how many jobs the state stands to lose.
"I believe there's some opportunity for some common sense," Dermody said. "If we do nothing, revenues are going to continue to decline.
"So whether you support gaming or you don't support gaming, you have to be open to the idea that at some point, there will be less dollars to go to schools, less dollars to go to locals and so forth."
State Sen. Earline Rogers, D-Gary, who helped enact Indiana gaming laws during four decades, hopes the panel will recommend Gary's Majestic Star casinos be permitted to relocate on land, perhaps adjacent to the Borman Expressway.
A similar 2009 gaming study committee backed that idea. But Rogers' efforts to persuade the General Assembly to approve it repeatedly were thwarted by Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. trying to protect his city's Horseshoe Casino.
"It's a different Legislature, and seemingly there's been a move to more conservative legislators and a more conservative governor," Rogers said. "He's got that sign that says 'Indiana works.' Well, it works because those gaming dollars come into Indiana."
Republican Gov. Mike Pence, who once confessed he's never purchased a lottery ticket, has said he opposes any expansion of gaming in Indiana.
So far, Pence has refused to specify what he considers "expansion of gaming."
In 2013, Pence told lawmakers he did not support allowing riverboat casinos to move on land at their dockside properties, live dealers at the racinos or mobile gaming.
However, Pence stopped short of issuing a veto threat. In the end, he signed gaming legislation providing tax cuts to casino owners.
But now that new tax cuts for all Indiana corporations are set to drain hundreds of millions of additional dollars from state coffers -- on top of the $150 million in annual losses from the recent repeal of the inheritance tax -- Rogers thinks Pence might embrace the recommendations of the gaming study.
"Hopefully we'll come out with some answers and be able to recapture those revenues that we've lost -- and put ourselves in a position where we might be able to get additional revenues," Rogers said.
State Sen. Ron Alting, R-Lafayette, vice chairman of the gaming study committee, said it's time Hoosier lawmakers decide what gaming expansion is and then move forward within that parameter to preserve casino jobs and revenues.
"We still have a very conservative mindset on what we will allow and not allow in gaming, and as long as we continue to have that, it's going to be a struggling industry," Alting said.
Alting rejects the idea that replacing video dealers at racinos with live dealers is an expansion of gaming. He said Hoosiers already are playing blackjack, craps, roulette and other dealer-led games at the racinos.
Similarly, allowing riverboat casinos -- which never sail -- to move onto dockside land isn't an expansion, he said. Dockside gaming simply is refreshing Indiana's casino properties to better compete with neighboring states.
"You could put millions and millions of dollars into a boat, but when you walk on it it's still a boat; versus Ohio that has bright, shiny land-based casinos," Alting said.
The gaming study committee is scheduled to meet at least three times during the summer and is expected to issue recommendations for 2015 legislative action in its final report.