Ho-Chunk Inc., the economic development division of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, recently filed a request to intervene in the lawsuit by Argosy parent company, Penn National Gaming, challenging the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission’s 2013 decision to award a casino license to the owners of the Hard Rock casino under construction in downtown Sioux City. The IRGC chose Sioux City Entertainment’s Hard Rock proposal over two bids from Penn National and one from Ho-Chunk.
Like Penn National’s petition, Ho-Chunk’s said the commission violated its own selection procedures by allowing Hard Rock developers to make “wholesale, and untimely, amendments” to its application, including how the project would be financed.
Ho-Chunk President and Chief Executive Officer Lance Morgan said, “We generally don’t like lawsuits because they are expensive and messy. However, we spent over $1 million on the bid process and, if it was flawed, then at the very least we need to have a seat at the table.” Ho-Chunk attorneys said Ho-Chunk would be the “logical recipient” of the license if the courts decide the application process was “inappropriate or flawed.”
The Wisconsin-based Winnebago tribe, formerly on the verge of bankruptcy, operates a network of six casinos, with 175,000 square feet of casino floor space, 5,000 slot machines and about 100 tables. The tribe’s gaming operations generate about $200 million in profit annually—more than one-third of the annual totals reported for Wisconsin’s 11 tribes in a 2012 state audit. Ho-Chunk employs about 3,500 people, of whom 28 percent are tribal members and nearly 2,300 work in the casinos, hotels or other affiliated businesses. Each of the tribe’s 7,400 enrolled members receive around $12,000 a year in per capita payments from gambling revenues, a total of about $90 million a year.
Meanwhile, in Carroll County, the board of supervisors recently voted to send a letter to the IRGC in support of West Des Moines-based Wild Rose Entertainment’s proposed $40 million casino complex in Jefferson at U.S. Highway 30 and Iowa Highway 4. The project is expected to generate $30 million annually in gaming revenue. Wild Rose previously announced it would contribute 4 percent of its gaming profits, about $1.2 million annually, to its nonprofit partner, Grow Greene County Gaming Corporation.
Wild Rose must apply to the IRGC for a gaming license by January 6, 2015. The commission will vote on the project in April or May. Last August, 75 percent of Greene County voters approved a gaming referendum–the highest margin of victory for that type of referendum in Iowa history.
