A gambling bill sailed through the Senate last week. It could face choppier waters in the House.
The bill makes at least four major changes in what you can bet on and where. It authorizes a new casino in Terre Haute, allows Gary to turn two lakefront casinos into a single casino downtown, legalizes sports wagering, and allows live dealers at the racetrack casinos in Anderson and Shelbyville. House Speaker Brian Bosma says having that many moving parts increases the likelihood some legislators will object to one of them. He warns if the bill’s not slimmed down, it’ll be a delicate balance to make sure existing casinos don’t get hurt, and to get enough votes to pass it.
Bosma acknowledges the nature of the gambling debate at the statehouse appears to have changed. Past changes typically centered on making the case that the state was not expanding gambling. When legislators allowed slot machines at the racetracks, for instance, it was packaged with a crackdown on illegal “Cherry Master” video slots at bars and truck stops. Bosma says the legalization of sports betting can be similarly rationalized as turning illegal bets into legal ones.
But Bosma says he has bigger concerns about the Terre Haute casino, which would be the first new casino since Shelbyville added slots 10 years ago. And he says the push to allow live dealers at the racinos upends a deal reached under then-Governor Mike Pence to delay that change till 2021. That date ensured live table games wouldn’t begin until Pence, a gambling skeptic, left office. But Bosma says it was also to give the French Lick casino time to get on solid financial ground. The casino there receives different treatment from the others because it was created as the linchpin of the preservation effort for the historic hotels in French Lick and West Baden Springs.