The days of gambling riverboats plying the waters of the Ohio River or Lake Michigan may soon have gone the way of the paddle wheelers of yore.
On the last day of January the Indiana Senate passed a "dockside" bill that ends riverboat cruising. "Dockside" allows gamblers to board or leave riverboats at anytime, not just every two or three hours when cruises begin. The bill also lets a riverboat dock at French Lick and permits slot machines at the two Indiana horse race tracks in Shelbyville and Anderson.
How would a riverboat sail in landlocked French Lick? Plans are to dig a moat-like trench around one of the two historic hotels in the area. Fill it with water, haul in the riverboat and presto, you have what legislators call "boat in the moat." Many see the return of gambling there, which was widespread in the first half of the 20th century, as the only way to save the hotels.
Final passage of the "dockside" bill would be a huge expansion of gaming in Indiana. A trend the three top leaders in Indiana government, the Governor, the House Speaker and the Pro Tem of the Senate, have consistently opposed. This powerful trio presents a huge obstacle for the bill's sponsor, Evansville's Sen. Greg Server, who must now get the bill through the Indiana House. Despite the big obstacles, betting in the lobby is that "dockside" will become law by early March.
The reason, say the lobbyists, is an empty treasury. The recently over-flowing state coffers have been ravaged by the current recession and some ill-advised tax cuts.
Open boarding, a new boat at French Lick, slots at the two Indiana tracks, and new gambling taxes, could bring in an extra $500 million a year, say legislative analysts. This money would help get the budget back in balance. So far this year legislators have balked at raising cigarette and sales taxes as the governor has demanded to avoid severe cuts in education.
Legislators also face a court-mandated "market value" shift of property taxes from businesses to residences. If nothing is done, new tax bills will average 30 percent more next year for homeowners. This being an election year, many legislators see the expansion of gaming as much more palatable than raising taxes to meet these challenges.
What does all this mean? Are land-based casinos on the horizon? What about slots on every corner like Las Vegas? Are tough economic times all that is needed to expand gaming again? Where does it end?
Phil Fisher, the Dean of the School of Business at USI, warned, in an article in the Evansville Courier prior to the gaming referendum in Vanderburgh County, that as an economic development tool Riverboats are a bad bet. Casinos take too much money out of a community, he argued. At the time I disagreed. I was convinced that the thousands of patrons to the riverboat would also stop to shop and eat after gambling. This has not happened.
Let's take a stroll down memory lane. In early Indiana history, lotteries were hailed as an easy way to pay off a burgeoning state debt for a host of public projects like the Wabash and Erie Canal. The lottery failed and the state went bankrupt, not paying some bills for fifty years. Officials were so opposed to gambling that anti lottery language was placed into the constitution when it was adopted in 1851.
This language was not repealed until the 1980's when a new lottery was okayed, pari-mutuel gambling was permitted, and the doors were opened for all types of gaming.
Can this slide be stopped halfway down the slippery slope? Are we headed for another constitutional showdown?
