Hundreds of people streamed in soon after the doors opened to Indiana’s first tribal casino.
Leaders of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians joined with South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg and others for a ceremony marking Tuesday’s opening day of the Four Winds South Bend casino. The new casino joins three that the tribe already owns in southwestern Michigan.
The tribe says the casino has about 1,800 electronic gambling machines, four restaurants, three bars and employs about 1,200 people. It is on South Bend’s southwest side, near the U.S. 31/20 bypass.
The new tribal casino won’t pay state taxes, giving it a business advantage over Indiana’s 13 existing casinos that paid about 27 percent in state and local taxes on their gambling profits last year.
