An End to the Casino Expansion Era

JOHNSTON -- At the last minute, I decided to drive a couple of hours west to see the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission end the "suspense" over which of four communities would win a casino license.

I thought about the fact that I had been there for the beginning of Iowa's casino expansion era, as a young House page watching the Legislature approve riverboat gambling in 1989.

I decided I just had to be be there to see how it ends.

And that's what Thursday's vote for Lyon County and against Webster, Wapello and Tama counties is. It's the end of a 21-year stretch during which we watched casinos go from low-stakes excursions to high-stakes at the dock to high-and-dry palaces built over water bladders to finally dry land.

Once the Lyon County casino on the South Dakota state line opens, we'll have 18 state-licensed casinos.

But that's all, folks.

It was pretty telling that commissioners opened their meeting by telling us not to bother asking about more casinos anytime soon. They talked about waiting three to five years. And only, they said, if the economy rallies or our population soars or scientists develop a corn-soybean pill that safely melts away pounds.

"I don't think you can say never again," said Commission Chairman Greg Seyfer of Cedar Rapids, who opted against asking the board to approve a formal license moratorium.

Sure you can. The door is closed. No more guests will be invited to the big poker party lawmakers started all those years ago.

The last county to make it past the velvet rope epitomizes Iowa's long casino race - a border spot with not much going on that really, really wants to be someplace where people want to go and spend (lose) hard-earned money.

Permission granted. Tell Lyon County what they won.

They get 900 slot machines, 24 table games, eight poker tables, a 100-room hotel, 1,2oo-seat events center, an 18-hole golf course, spa and, of course, a buffet. The casino resort is supposed to employ 700 and rake in $80 million annually, while spitting out $2.7 million for community projects.

Every commissioner sang praises at the project, developed by the Kehl Family, which owns the Riverside casino. And best of all, it would not "cannibalize" from any other existing member of Iowa's casino cartel.

Winner, winner, buffet dinner.

Instead, it would grab Sioux Falls residents, turn them upside down and shake money from their pockets. If their own state refuses to tax their income, we will.

I've said many times that I think if a county votes for gambling, has financing and a plan, they should get a license. I don't care if existing casinos don't want competition. It's a mature industry. A free market, supposedly. What's with gambling titans who don't like risks?

(I passed by a giant Bass Pro Shops in Altoona as I drove to Johnston. I wonder how it ever won approval from the state's Sporting Goods Commission. Surely there's cannibalization afoot. Oh, that's right, there is no such commission. Sorry Scheels, etc.)

Tama and Ottumwa had public votes, but their plans were full of missed deadlines and big funding holes. I don't blame the commission for voting them down.

Fort Dodge had a 57-percent yes vote, money and a plan. Oh, and baggage. Two backers are being investigated for possibly giving illegal campaign contributions to Gov. Chet Culver. City workers were famously paid to attend a pro-casino rally, etc. There was plenty of foot-shooting to go around.

But Fort Dodge's plan could have been certified baggage-free by Good Housekeeping and it still would have been voted down because it threatened to take profits from the Wild Rose Casino in Emmetsburg.Wild Rose paid millions of dollars for a state license in 2005, and that, evidently, includes a no-competition insurance policy.

A commission that was once a friendly dealer handing out licenses to the lucky is now a security guard protecting its flock from competition. Wild Rose was in danger, wagons circled.

"It's a legal monopoly," said Fort Dodge's city planning director Dennis Plautz. Bingo.

Even Gov. Chet Culver was no match for the monopoly. His letter to the commission urging approval of all four applications carried no weight. Governor's come and go, but the cartel is forever.

So what started in a raucous legislative debate in '89 and a dramatic, tight vote ends with a lot of long faces in a hotel conference room after a lopsided vote. An era that came in like a lion goes out with Lyon County.Fitting.