By Dan Carden, Times of Northwest Indiana
dan.carden@nwi.com
INDIANAPOLIS | The odds that Gary's riverboat casino will be able to relocate onto land seemed to improve a little bit Friday.
Gov. Mitch Daniels said he'd "give it a look" if lawmakers passed a measure permitting Indiana casinos to relocate from boats onto land.
"(Ending) the business of the engine that never runs and the captain that never drives the boat, that's fine with me," Daniels said. "I always thought that was a strange fiction anyway."
Because Indiana's casinos technically are working riverboats, they are required to have expensive maritime engines and a crew, even though they never leave the dock.
House Speaker Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, didn't rule out letting casinos go land-based, but he said he's concerned the market wouldn't be able to accommodate every casino moving off the water.
"I think we have to try to help the industry survive," Bauer said. "I just don't know what the solution is right now."
Indiana's casinos are facing new competition after Ohio voters approved a referendum Tuesday allowing four new casinos in Cincinnati, Columbus, Toledo and Cleveland.
The Ohio casinos aren't expected to come online until 2012 and likely would not affect Northwest Indiana casino revenue.
The Republican governor said during a news conference Friday on the state's budget that he opposes adding additional casino licenses to combat the Ohio threat.
"Expansion is out of order. I think we're at, if we're not past, the point of saturation now," Daniels said.
He also ruled out cutting the wagering taxes of Indiana's casinos or giving back some of the combined $500 million two downstate horse tracks paid the state in 2007 for permission to add thousands of slot machines to their properties.
When the General Assembly convenes in January, state Rep. Charlie Brown, D-Gary, and state Sen. Earline Rogers, D-Gary, are expected to try to win permission to move the Majestic Star casinos from two boats on Buffington Harbor in Gary to a single land-based location adjacent to the Borman Expressway.
The legislators hope to use the additional tax money generated by a better attended casino to pay for a new training hospital and medical school in Gary.
The proposal remains controversial because a land-based casino in Gary would draw players and revenues away from the remaining Lake Michigan casinos.