INDIANAPOLIS — After years of discussing the need to make Indiana casinos more competitive, local lawmakers are cautiously optimistic that this might be the year when changes are made to gaming in Indiana.
Some of those changes include adding live table games to racinos such as Hoosier Park Racing & Casino in Anderson.
State Sen. Tim Lanane, D-Anderson, and Reps. Terri Austin, D-Anderson, and Jack Lutz, R-Anderson, are all committee members on the Interim Study Committee on Public Policy.
The committee has been tasked with finding ways to make Indiana casinos more competitive now that more and more customers are being taken by casinos in Michigan, Illinois and, more recently, Ohio.
"Time is of the essence at this point," Lanane said. "We should have probably done something sooner but we need to find some common-sense solutions to this problem."
A lot of the information presented to the legislators were things many of them have already seen before, according to Lutz.
"This is a lot of the same information we've had and I think we've waited a little long to do something," Lutz said. "We're being reactive to the competition from Illinois and Ohio as opposed to proactive."
Revenues are down in casinos all over the state from Gary to French Lick to Lawrenceburg. Casino representatives said the new Ohio casinos are better equipped to attract customers and build better facilities because of Ohio's law taxing casinos. There's also a fear that the market has become oversaturated with casinos.
Hoosier Park hasn't been as negatively affected as some casinos but has still seen a loss in revenue. Jim Brown, president and CEO of Centuar Gaming, which owns Hoosier Park, said they've seen about a 6 percent decline in total revenue from last year. He said most of the missing customers are being taken by new casinos in Toledo and Cincinnati.
Brown addressed the committee with some things Centaur would like to see changed to make them more competitive. Chief among them was adding live dealers to table games such as blackjack, craps and poker. Currently, both Hoosier Park and Indiana Grand in Shelbyville, also owned by Centaur, have those games but they are all electronically operated. Brown said he doesn't think adding a dealer would be considered an expansion of gaming.
"We're operating in the same footprint, we're not adding tables," Brown said. "We're just replacing a computer chip with a human being."
Brown said his company believes adding live gaming to the two racinos could result in 600 new jobs.
Lanane said this discussion isn't just about revenue, it's also about stimulating economy. He said those new jobs could have a very big impact on the communities of Anderson and Shelbyville.
But it's not just those two communities that have to be considered when trying to fix Indiana's gaming situation. The three riverboats in southeast Indiana have been hit extremely hard by the new casino in Cincinnati and riverboats on Lake Michigan are also seeing Illinois take some of their revenue. They all told the committee that being able to build casinos on land is their No. 1 request.
Austin said she hopes something will be done in the 2015 session to help the entire gaming community.
"I'm cautiously optimistic," Austin said. "We've got people representing the racinos and riverboats and hopefully we'll be able to take the lead and make sure no one suffers any harm."
Rep. Tom Dermody, R-LaPorte, is chairing the committee. He said he wanted all of the committee members to come to the next meeting with ideas for how to help the casino industry from live gaming to land-based gaming to a friendlier tax climate.