Tweaking Riverboat Revenue Sharing

The Corydon Democrat, the Indianapolis Star, and the Courier-Journal all have had articles recently about a proposal to revise the sharing arrangements that govern the distribution of riverboat gaming revenue that Harrison County receives from its casino in Bridgeport.

Harrison County "shares the wealth" from its gaming license by providing a percentage of riverboat gaming revenue to its neighboring counties. Floyd County, for example, gets a slice of money in part because most of the visitors to the casino drive through Floyd County to reach Caesars Indiana. Crawford County, whose citizens voted in favor of riverboat gaming and never received a license from the state (a lesson to folks in Clark County, mind), also gets a share of this revenue.

Crawford County also receives revenue from Belterra Casino in Switzerland County, as that casino's operators planned to build in Crawford County but decided to build elsewhere instead. Belterra, however, has recently decided to not renew revenue sharing agreements with Crawford County, depriving them of that income.

With the opening of a new casino at French Lick in Orange County, Crawford County is likely set to receive further shared riverboat gaming revenues from a new source. This is, not least, because some traffic to the French Lick casino will go up US 37 through Crawford County (though most will likely go up US 150 through Harrison and Washington Counties instead).

Because Crawford County is set to get more money, though an as-yet-unknown amount, from Orange County, leaders in Harrison County have reasoned that Crawford County no longer needs such a large slice of the riverboat gaming revenue pie from Caesars Indiana as it used to have. Crawford County, understandably, doesn't like this. They wouldn't like it if they weren't one of the poorest counties in Indiana, and they like it even less because of that fact.

This is where it gets interesting. There seems to be an evolving consensus among the Harrison County Council in favor of cutting the size of the slice of the pie being given to Crawford County. With that county likely to be soon awash in new revenues from Orange County anyway, this makes sense.

Protestations to "stay the course" do not hold up to basic reasoning. It makes no difference in Indianapolis how riverboat revenues are shared by Harrison County; politicians around Indy would take Harrison County's riverboat revenues if they could regardless of how much is being shared with Crawford County or any other county. This does not mean that riverboat revenue should not be shared, only that such sharing should be revised given that Crawford County will soon be getting new money from Orange County too.

Alvin Brown, a retiring member of the Harrison County Council, has proposed increasing the share of revenue to Washington and Floyd Counties and cutting the share to Crawford County. His reasoning? Harrison County should want to help Washington and Floyd counties with the traffic on US 150 that will be going to French Lick.

Such an idea makes absolutely no sense to me at all. Why should Harrison County want to make it easier for people to go to French Lick to gamble? If Harrison County should be trying to make it easier for people to gamble, they should want to make it easier for people to go to Caesars Indiana.

Harrison County does not get money in a revenue sharing agreement with Orange County. We have little reason to help them with traffic to their casino. Helping with traffic on US 150 to French Lick, though perhaps well-intentioned, will harm Harrison County in the long run by cutting into the amount of riverboat gaming that goes on at Caesars Indiana.

Instead of increasing the share of riverboat revenue going to Washington and Floyd Counties, why not increase the slice of revenue that goes just to Floyd County? The agreement to give more revenue to Floyd County could be made contingent upon Floyd County making State Highway 111, which runs from New Albany to Bridgeport, where Caesars is located, into a four-lane road.

Harrison County would then be strengthening itself in multiple ways. It would be garnering additional favor with its neighbors by revising its revenue sharing, and it would be strengthening Caesars Indiana by making it easier for people to get there. With the potential of a casino opening in Clark County always looming in the background, widening Highway 111 makes a great deal of sense in terms of keeping Caesars Indiana happy and making it more accessible.