A flawed fiscal impact report is to blame for the lack of progress in the Indiana online casino gaming legislation. For the third consecutive year, efforts to expand the iGaming options in the state remain stuck.
- Online casino and poker players in Indiana must now wait until 2024.
- Jon Ford admits that this year didn’t go well.
The launch was meant to go live in September 2023, but there were concerns about legalizing iGaming in the state. Studies indicated that online casinos could cannibalize the revenues of existing brick-and-mortar casinos by 30% or more.
“The fiscal is a joke”
The state senator, Jon Ford, stated, “The fiscal analysis on the bill was horrible and made collaboration pretty hard. To use a study from 2011 and not pay attention to the other four or five studies done around the country since then, it appeared to me the fiscal analyst was looking for a study that proved his thought.”
Indiana casinos are not concerned
Despite the report, casinos in Indiana are not concerned about cannibalization. Seven of the eight casinos members of the Casino Association of Indiana agree with the legislation. The CEO, Matt Bell, said, “the cannibalization number was much higher than presented.”
Bell remains optimistic about the legalization of iGaming in the state. He’ll work with lawmakers and the Legislative Services Agency on cannibalization, while Ford will continue to go forward with online casino efforts.
