The 17 casinos in Black Hawk, Colorado bring in more than 4 million annually. As a result, the town of less than 100 people has an annual budget of million. Gaming taxes have gone toward the purchase of main-street buildings, historic mines and surrounding land. Now city officials have an ambitious 25-year plan to convert Gregory Street into a casino-free pedestrian mall featuring breweries, distilleries, restaurants and retail shops. The plan also includes developing mountain biking and hiking trails above town, and refurbishing the historic a narrow gauge railroad line. The goal is to bring in diverse tourists—not just gamblers.
“Black Hawk gets accused of being the city where all we want is gaming and we don’t care about other amenities. But, actually, by buying all of this, we have taken nine acres out of the gaming area. There will be no gaming here,” said Black Hawk Mayor David Spellman, a fifth-generation Black Hawkite who has served 20 years on the city council and 10 more as mayor. “Everything we do from this point out is to drive and increase what I like to call visitor volume and velocity. More visitors, more often, for a longer period of time.”
After nonstop growth throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, Black Hawk gaming revenue plateaued around 2007, when the casinos took in $565.6 million. In 2016 casino revenue reached only $604.7 million. Under the 25-year plan, Black Hawk hopes to generate as much as $197 million in additional annual revenue for the region.
Black Hawk casinos—which contributed $99 million of the state’s $116 million in gaming taxes in 2015—appreciate the plan, said Lodge Casino General Manager John East. “We would like to see some additional things here to support our core casino business. But the casinos will remain the centerpiece of everything that drives business to Black Hawk. If we can provide things for more people, particularly couples, it’s healthy. The real challenge I see with the mayor’s plan is how are these retail outlets going to survive when all the casinos are offering everything for comp. We give away a lot of food and drinks. What are they going to do get people comfortable with paying for something that is free next door?”
Spellman responds, “The casinos may not be on board with this as much as we would want them to be, but they certainly have come a long way from 10 years ago. They need to understand that if we want people to come here for multiple days, you’ve got to have more to do. With all these new people moving to Colorado, we have some real potential here.”
