Legislative study committee recommends live gambling for Anderson, Shelbyville casinos

The recommendation was part of a final report delivered by the committee during its last of three meetings. Along with live gaming, the committee also made the recommendations to allow riverboat casinos to move gambling on land, to incentivize capital improvements and to change the way the state collects the admission tax casinos have to pay. The recommendations are all attempts at making Indiana's casinos more competitive with the new casinos in Ohio, Illinois and Michigan.

Although the final report received unanimous bipartisan support, the recommendations still have to be placed in a bill that will have to be passed by the full General Assembly during the 2015 session.

The live table games language was directed at Indiana's two racinos, Hoosier Park and Indiana Grand in Shelbyville. Currently, they both have typical casino table games like poker or blackjack but the games are run by computers instead of live human dealers.

At the behest of Centaur Gaming, which owns both racinos, the committee decided to allow live dealers. Jim Brown, president and COO of Centaur, has stated at previous meetings the live games will attract more customers who are wary of games run by computers and create more jobs.

If the recommendation, as passed, becomes law, the racinos will be able to add a live dealer to all of their current table games. They will not be able to add any new table games for two years.

Rep. Terri Austin, D-Anderson, didn't like the two-year clause. She said she thought the casino industry was regulated enough and didn't want the racinos to have to wait to add more tables.

"The whole premise behind this committee was to allow the gaming industry to become more competitive," Austin said. "They need to be able to change as market conditions change."

Chairman Tom Dermody, a Republican from LaPorte, said the two-year period was chosen to see how the live gaming went. He said the general consensus of the committee was that just switching the computer chips with a human wasn't an expansion of gaming.

Brown said he was pleased with the final report considering how large of a task the committee was attempting to undertake. 

"The committee had a tremendous task in terms of trying to make the industry more competitive," Brown said. "On balance, I think the recommendations were fair and I give a lot of credit for the work that they did."

He said Centaur would've preferred to see the two-year limit on new tables dropped to one year but said he was satisfied with being able to switch the computers out with humans.

"It's a start," Brown said. "Our customers have been wanting this for years and it adds jobs."

Sen. Tim Lanane, D-Anderson, who is also on the committee, said he was proud of the work the committee had accomplished on a very tricky issue.

"I think this is a very reasoned approach," Lanane said. "I'm happy with the live gaming recommendation and I'm on board with all the other recommendations."

It is not clear who will carry the casino bill through the 2015 session when it kicks off in January.