The Indiana Gaming Commission unanimously voted to allow Ameristar Casino in East Chicago to relocate its high-limit slots and table games from its Lake Michigan riverboat to a section of its dockside pavilion, which currently houses restaurants. The $5.8 million renovation of the pavilion will be completed in mid-April and offer 95 high-limit slots, 14 high-limit table games plus a casino cage, rewards center, food, beverages and restrooms.
Ameristar Vice President and General Manager Matt Schuffert said, “We’re pretty excited about it. It’s going to create a new gaming experience in Northwest Indiana that folks haven’t experienced yet.”
He stated the relocation will allow room for 100 extra gaming positions on the riverboat’s main level. Ameristar currently offers more than 1,700 slot machines and 70 table games.
Schuffert said, “This is an initial step to see how our guests react to it. Obviously to bring the entire facility on land is a pretty large investment. And it’s still a very tough, competitive environment up in Chicagoland with Indiana also battling the video gaming terminals over in Illinois. So we think this is the right decision, the right capital investment for our property at this time.”
Ameristar will be the first regional casino to move onto land, following the Indiana legislature’s approval in 2015 of a law allowing permanently moored casino boats to move facilities ashore adjacent to their docks. Last month in southern Indiana, Tropicana Evansville opened a land-based casino.
Schuffert said Ameristar’s project already has been endorsed by
The East Chicago Plan Commission and the city have approved the casino’s technical review, Schuffert said. He added construction may begin in late December or early January, depending on plan approval by the state.
Northwest Indiana casinos reported $789.7 million in gaming revenue, down 1 percent from 2016, according to state figures.
Less than eight miles away, officials and players at the Majestic Star Casino in Gary are breathing a sigh of relief over a proposed ordinance banning smoking. Common Councilwoman LaVetta Sparks-Wade removed her name from the controversial proposed ordinance expanding the state’s smoking ban to the Majestic Star Casino. In fact, Sparks-Wade said she never supported the ordinance or asked to sponsor it, and said the ban could lead to job losses at the casino. “I wouldn’t want to cause anyone to lose a job. I cannot see us voting for this at this time,” she said. She also noted a smoking ban in Gary would give competing, nearby casinos an unfair advantage.
Sparks-Wade added any smoking ban should come from the state legislature and apply to all casinos. “To approve something that would only apply to Gary would be devastating to us.” She said even law state law allows local communities to impose different smoking rules, “this really is a state issue.”
Peter Liguori, chief executive officer at Majestic Star, said the smoking ban would have led to a 35 percent drop in annually gaming revenue and a loss of $3 million in annual tax revenue for Gary. He added 375 of the casinos’ approximately 1,000 workers could have lost their jobs. More than 200 Majestic Star workers showed up at the council’s finance committee meeting where the proposed ordinance was to be discussed.
Lori Latham, campaign coordinator of the Smoke-Free in the G group, said she was resigned to the reality that Gary would not pass a smoking ban after all. “A lot of work has to be done around people understanding their rights and about people feeling that they deserve health, that they deserve a smoke-free workplace and that they deserve a better quality of life,” she said.
