Close on the heels of a proposal in Maryland to cut purse benefits from slots by 50 per cent comes another legislative threat, this one in Indiana.
The chairman of the senate appropriations committee announced his panel would consider a bill allowing riverboats on the Ohio River and Lake Michigan to move inland.
The senator -- Luke Kenley, a republican from Noblesville, an established harness racing centre -- said the situation “calls for allowing these people (the riverboat operators) to do things that they ought to be able to do to meet anticipated competition head-on.”
He was referring to new Ohio competition, and he was not quoted as to the impact on racinos at Hoosier Park and Indiana Downs.
An analysis by the Indiana Legislative Services Agency, the general assembly’s non-partisan research arm, addressed that subject, and said Hoosier Park in Anderson would lose gambling customers to a casino planned by Penn National Gaming in Toledo, Ohio.
Obviously additional inland Indiana casinos would add further losses to Hoosier and Indiana Downs.
(Harness Tracks of America)