A bill designed to help Hoosier casinos compete with gaming institutions planned for construction in Ohio, Illinois and Michigan cleared a state legislative committee Thursday.
The Senate Appropriations Committee voted to move the measure forward.
The statute would lower taxes on casinos, permit riverboat casinos to move their operations inland, and allow live table games at two Indianapolis-area horse tracks.
The plan also calls for ending millions of dollars in annual payments to communities in which casinos are headquartered. Panel chairman Sen. Luke Kenley (R-Noblesville) reasoned local units should share in the responsibility of helping the game centers thrive.
The bill would reverse a policy that guaranteed casino communities never receive less than the amounts they collected in 2002. Because of the economic downturn, the state has been forced to share gaming taxes to make good on the guarantees.
This bill reconfirms our long-standing concern that lawmakers spend too much of their time — and ours — tinkering with the state’s gaming laws. The proposed allowance of live table games at the two horse tracks is particularly troubling.
Indiana already is too dependent on gaming for revenue, and the gaming industry is anything but stable. Two casinos in Gary are currently in bankruptcy.
Rather than proceeding further down this problematic path, our leaders should be designing an exit strategy from what has been a bad and irresponsible idea from the beginning.
Continuing to gamble on gaming revenue to pay our bills is a long-term, reckless design for failure.
The sooner we accept our mistake and act to rectify it, the better.