Longtime CEO of state casino lobbying group stepping down
Mike Smith plans to resign as president and CEO of the Casino Association of Indiana after more than a dozen years in the position, the group announced Monday.
Mike Smith plans to resign as president and CEO of the Casino Association of Indiana after more than a dozen years in the position, the group announced Monday.
Indiana lawmakers bought the state’s embattled casino industry time, but the new protections might not be enough to ensure each gambling parlor’s long-term survival.
The center, to be located near Indiana Downs, will provide health services to horses and serve as a working laboratory for veterinary school learning and research.
Tribal Chairman John Warren said the law specifying the process for the state to enter into a compact violates the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act because it includes stipulations on what the compact must include.
Indiana’s riverboat casinos will be allowed to build new on-land facilities under a bill that Gov. Mike Pence will allow to become law without his signature. But Pence vetoed a bill that would have allowed online betting on horses.
Lawmakers have approved a deal to allow Indiana's riverboat casinos to build on-land facilities, but live dealers won't be working table games anytime soon at the state's two horse track casinos.
The question of whether the two horse track casinos in central Indiana will be allowed to add live dealers for their current electronic table games remained unsettled Monday with little more than a week left in this year's legislative session.
The legislation will move to a joint House-Senate conference committee where members will try to strike a deal that can be passed by both chambers by midnight April 29.
The Senate bill, which passed 36-13, doesn’t allow live dealers to oversee table games at the state’s horse track-based casinos in Anderson and Shelbyville, at least not for five years. And that could be a deal-breaker in the House.
Centaur Gaming plans to release an annual report this week that plays up its charitable contributions and tax payments as state senators debate whether to allow the company to add live dealers at its central Indiana racetrack casinos.
Because Four Winds Casino would be on land-in-trust controlled by a Native American tribe, it would not be subject to the same tax and regulatory system as other casinos in Indiana.
Racetrack casinos would have to wait until 2021 to get live dealers at table games under a proposed Senate amendment to a gambling bill that has already passed the House.
The bill allows riverboat casinos to build on their existing land footprints, creates a tax credit for existing casinos to build hotels, and gives racinos the ability to convert half of their electronic table game machines to live dealing stations.
Gov. Mike Pence has been firm that he doesn’t want an expansion of gambling operations in the state. But he has not been clear about what he means by “expansion.”
The House has stripped language out of a controversial gambling bill that would have cut millions of dollars in funding that goes to communities where casinos are located.
Speaker Brian Bosma pulled a controversial gambling bill off the Indiana House calendar on Monday in part as an attempt to reduce the financial hit communities with casinos would suffer under the proposal.
Local economic agreements between the state’s casinos and local communities would be scrapped and the admissions tax that provides revenue to local governments eliminated.
A legislative committee has endorsed a proposal to allow Indiana's riverboat casinos to move inland. It also would allow live dealers for table games at Hoosier Park in Anderson and Indiana Grand in Shelbyville.
Proposals aim to help boost Indiana's casinos after they've seen more big declines in revenue in the face of growing competition from neighboring states.
Two of the state’s largest casinos and horse track betting facilities, Hoosier Park in Anderson and Indiana Grand in Shelbyville, stand to benefit most if the proposed legislation becomes law.