Deadwood, South Dakota recently celebrated the 25th anniversary of gambling, which started there on November 1, 1989. At the time only Las Vegas and Atlantic City offered legal gambling. Today, only Hawaii and Utah do not offer some form of it; most Americans do not have to travel more than 150 miles to find a casino.
As a result, Deadwood has increased bet limits from $5 to $25, then to $100 and ultimately to $1,000. Recently about 65 percent of voters approved constitutional Amendment Q, allowing roulette, craps and keno.
In the past 25 years about 2 million people have visited Deadwood casinos, and officials have invested more than $300 million, building Las Vegas-style casinos, convention centers and entertainment venues. Mayor Chuck Turbiville said, “The challenge now, with proliferation of gaming throughout the U.S., is to keep people coming to Deadwood, keep them interested in our history, keep the community as the first attraction and continue promoting gaming so we can be competitive with surrounding states.”
Turbiville noted the city commission recently approved spending $80,000 for initial designs for a major revitalization project that could cost up to $5 million. “These revitalization efforts represent a long-term approach designed to do a number of things. We need to continue to make Deadwood more attractive as a destination for visitors, so people come to Deadwood and stay here as opposed to just passing through.”
Deadwood officials have hired Roger Brooks International, the same destination marketing firm that created Rapid City’s Main Street Square, to help guide them through the revitalization project. The Brooks study already has recommended that the city work harder to attract millennial customers and to development a better mix of retail and casinos, said Mike Rodman, executive director of the Deadwood Gaming Association.
“Thirty-seven percent of the visitor dollar is spent on gaming in Las Vegas now. The rest is dedicated to retail, dining, entertainment. The beginning of that evolution is happening in Deadwood today. We’ve witnessed the addition of Main Street restaurants, spas and gaming storefronts becoming retail shops. It’s an evolution. Gaming remains something visitors want to do when they visit a destination, and it remains a critical economic component of this region. That said, we’ll continue to develop and showcase other amenities because that’s what makes visitors turn their sights to Deadwood. It’s what we have to do,” Rodman said.
