Colorado's mountain casinos are poised to introduce new games and higher limits overnight Wednesday. Face The State will be on the scene covering (and perhaps participating in) the festivities; watch for our story Thursday. In anticipation of the change in law, we bring you this preview from Gene Davis at the Denver Daily News.
Colorado casinos are placing their bets that the gambling rule changes going into effect at 12:01 a.m. tomorrow will put an end to their bad fortune.
The casino smoking ban, spike in gas prices last summer and current recession have created a “perfect storm” to hurt the local gaming industry — 2008 was reportedly Colorado casinos’ worst economic year in its 17-year history.
Thanks to the passage of Amendment 50, the casinos will be allowed to stay open 24 hours, raise the maximum bet from $5 to $100 and allow craps and roulette.
“It just opens up a whole lot more opportunities for people to come on up and enjoy the kind of gaming they like,” said Joe Behm, marketing director for the Fortune Valley Hotel and Casino and president of the Central City Business Improvement District. “We were hit by the triple whammy last year and this should help turn things around.”
Meanwhile, the Center for Dependency, Addiction and Rehabilitation (CeDAR) at the University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora is expecting more gambling addiction-related phone calls as a result of the gambling rule changes.
“We think the increase in time and increase in dollars will play into people who have the propensity to gamble excessively,” said Franklin Lisnow, executive director of CeDAR. “We expect to see a larger problem, but that’s not to say there isn’t a problem now.”
Impact unknown
Although original predictions said that the new gambling rules would pump 25 percent more revenue into the Colorado gaming industry, casino managers and spokespeople said it is impossible to accurately project how much more money allowing craps, roulette and $100 bets will bring the 24-hour casinos.
The Gilpin County Sheriff’s office, which covers Black Hawk in its jurisdiction, said they are not imagining the gambling changes will have a dramatic impact on the area.
“We’re just taking the wait-and-see approach,” said Cherokee Blake, public information officer for the Gilpin County Sheriff’s Office. “We’re not thinking that it’s really going to affect the county.”
Black Hawk, Central City and Cripple Creek might not be transformed into Las Vegas overnight by the gambling changes, but Amendment 50 has resulted in new jobs for one of the largest private sector employers in the state. Colorado casinos have added more than 750 new jobs as a result of the gaming law changes, according to the Colorado Gaming Association.
The Lodge and Gilpin casinos alone have added 125 jobs. J.J. Garcia, assistant general manager for the two casinos, said they have increased the security and dealer staff to accommodate the new gaming rules.
“We’re excited. Everybody has put a lot of time and effort into it and the training, and we’re ready for (tomorrow) to be here,” he said.
‘Horse is out of the barn’
Fifty-eight percent of Colorado voters backed Amendment 50 last November. The measure allowed residents of Central City, Black Hawk and Cripple Creek to vote on whether they wanted to change the gambling rules in their town. All three cities overwhelmingly voted in favor of the changes.
One of the biggest opponents to the amendment — Scott Yates — said he still thinks that what happens in Vegas should stay out of Colorado, but that “the horse is out of the barn now” and there is nothing to be done about the gaming changes.
Community colleges
Colorado casinos teaming up with the state’s community colleges was credited as the main reason voters passed Amendment 50. Under the amendment, 78 percent of the new tax revenue collected by the casinos will go to Colorado community colleges, which they will start seeing around January 2011.
Nancy McCallin, president of the Colorado Community College System, said projections for the amount of money the community college system will receive the first year has dropped to the $7-$10 million range.
“It’s a sizable amount of money … but it’s not like the panacea,” she said.
Colorado community colleges currently receive $117 million in federal funding. McCallin said the additional revenue source, while not as much as originally projected, will be valuable in helping replenish some of the cuts that have faced the colleges as they have seen enrollment increase more than 30 percent.
“It’s very important long term to have found an alternative revenue source that is to be in addition to state funds, not in place of state funds,” she said. “It’s key, it will grow in importance over the next five-10 years.”