The kickoff of the National Football League season this month has many central Indiana employers fearful that fantasy will
encroach on reality. The fretfulness revolves around the start of the fantasy football season, where fans draft real players
onto make-believe teams and track their individual performances via organized Web sites.
The high-stakes competition for control of Indiana Downs has entered the homestretch. And South Bend-based Oliver Racing LLC
is poised to win.
Indiana’s two horse tracks could change hands as investors race to come up with the $250 million required to add thousands
of slot machines. The steep cost of a state license combined with the potential of a lucrative payoff has stakeholders in
Shelbyville-based Indiana Downs and Anderson-based Hoosier Park jockeying for position.
During their first half-decade in operation, the state's casino slots machines grew their total sales to $22 billion,
according to Indiana Gaming Commission records. But in the last five years, slot sales grew just 18 percent, reaching $25.9
billion in 2006. That's what business textbooks call a maturing market.
French Lick Resorts & Casino is already struggling, less than four months after its launch. And the casino’s owners are downright
terrified legislators soon will allow both of the state’s horse-racing tracks to become “racinos” and add up to 5,000 slot
machines.
To shore up local government’s enormous financial shortfalls, the Greater Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce has begun investigating whether it wants to push for a downtown casino–a politically explosive idea that would face widespread opposition.
