By Leslie Bonilla Muñiz
Indiana Capital Chronicle
Lawmakers pivotal to a Hoosier casino’s license relocation bid say the move is worth a look — and maybe more.
Full House Resorts says Rising Star Casino Resort, in the city of Rising Sun, is the worst-performing location in its portfolio, according to Hannah News Service.
It wants to move 150 miles north to New Haven, just east of Fort Wayne. Full House has already begun the process, a Rising Sun councilor confirmed on Facebook.
License relocation would require legislative approval, however.
Gambling-related legislation has largely been on pause since the last time Indiana relocated licenses in 2019.
Those moves — from the lakeshore to Gary and Terre Haute — involved an attempted quid pro quo that put one former lawmaker behind bars.
Post-recession sink
Rising Star was originally the Grand Victoria Casino & Resort, which opened along the Ohio River at Indiana’s border with Kentucky near the end of 1996.
In 1997, it admitted 3 million people, awarded upwards of $90 million in winnings, paid $35 million in gambling taxes and had 1,300 employees to manage it all, according to an Indiana Gaming Commission annual report.
Fast forward to 2007, and its attendance dropped below 2 million people. The casino awarded about $150 million, paid $43 million in taxes and maintained a staff of nearly 1,000.
Metrics further dropped off in 2008 and haven’t recovered. Full House closed on the property in 2011, according to WTHR, then renamed it.
Casinos no longer report admissions, but in 2024, Rising Star awarded about $$40 million and paid less than $4 million in taxes with a 300-person crew.
It’s not the first relocation attempt Full House has made.
In 2017 and 2018, it hoped to move unused gambling games to a supplemental Terre Haute location, according to a news release, or to take the casino elsewhere in Indiana, Ohio-based WKRC reported.
The company appears to be gearing up for another push at the Legislature. It didn’t return a request for comment.
Any move would also mean a referendum vote by citizens of Allen County — as other casino locations have done.
Key lawmakers seem receptive
Rep. Ethan Manning, a Logansport Republican who chairs the House’s Public Policy Committee, said the move is “something we should consider.”
Sen. Ron Alting, the Lafayette Republican leading the Senate’s Public Policy Committee said Indiana needed to “adapt” to growing casino competition along its borders. He said that, from a business perspective, he understood the desire to move.
Gambling legislation typically goes through the public policy committees, so chairs can either provide early support to related legislation, or an early death.
Both men said data would be key to the decision.
“I’m still formulating my personal position on it, and a lot of that has to do with … the data,” Manning said. “You know, if we cannibalize from Ohio and Michigan, that’s awesome, right? We’d much rather have that revenue than give that to other states.”
But, he said, he wanted to ensure any relocation would be a net gain for Indiana and its communities — “not taking from one property to go to another.”
Alting, meanwhile, said he wanted to listen to the lawmakers who represent both Rising Sun and New Haven and make sure both communities are treated fairly.
New Haven Community Development Director Zach Washler said the city has been in discussions with Full House “for several months” and that talks have included state and local electeds.
The city plans to hold community listening sessions in the fall, but early conversations have indicated support for a casino-anchored entertainment complex, Washler wrote, via email — as long as it’s not next to a church, school or park.
Mayor Steve McMichael said he’s looking forward to the listening sessions but said the development could provide “hundreds of jobs, opportunities to enhance public safety and health and create quality of life opportunities for generations to come.”
McMichael said he’s “confident,” based on Full House’s preliminary plans, that “any potential negative impacts would be very small” compared to the potential benefits: “from mental health counseling to property tax relief and funding for the community’s needs for generations to come, needs which currently exist without a current funding stream.”
Rising Sun didn’t return a request for comment about compensation for the casino’s departure.
If a deal comes together, Alting said he’d “be happy to support that and author the bill in the Senate” — with the “blessing” of his Senate colleagues and the chamber’s leader.
The committee chairs agreed that Rising Star’s prospective move would be different from 2019.
Manning said the current proposal is “more straightforward” because Full House is one company seeking to move one license it already controls, rather than the previous two-license, open bid debacle.
“The good news is the system worked,” he said. “All of all the stuff based on the previous bill several years ago has been working itself out, and we’ll let all that play out.”
“But gaming is a big industry in the state — lots of jobs, lots of investment, lots of revenue for the state and for local communities — so if there’s an opportunity overall to help the industry move forward, then this is one part of a larger conversation,” Manning concluded.
Alting, meanwhile, called Full House a “professional company,” noting that it does business across the country.
“They have a long, long history … they know what they’re doing,” he said.
“I think everyone is going to be dotting their i’s and crossing their t’s on this due to some problems that’s taken place in the past,” Alting added.
