Amendment 50 Pushes for Longer Casino Hours and Addition of Roulette and Craps

On October 22nd, 2008, backers of Amendment 50 said that the time is appropriate to expand gaming in the three Colorado towns where gambling is allowed. The Amendment 50 would give permission to the three gambling towns in Colorado to change the minimum stakes at casino table games from five dollars to one hundred dollars, change casino operation hours to twenty-four hours a day and offer new games like craps and roulette. Colorado estimates that expanded gaming would produce a total of $300 million dollars in profits for the first 5 years, most of which would be given to state community colleges.

Katy Atkinson, the spokesperson for Coloradans for Community Colleges said that the community colleges around the state suffered because of the budget cuts and badly need a stable source of funding. Most of the organization's support came from Colorado casinos, which are donating more than seven million dollars into the move to approve Amendment 50. The amendment is also being seen as a way to help the casino industry, which is facing its worst year since gaming was approved in 1991 because of the weak economy, gasoline prices and the smoking ban.

David Minter, the general manager of Johnny Nolon's Casino in Cripple Creek said that they are hopeful that the Amendment 50 will help them recover the revenue that they have lost because of the smoking ban. People should also not think that the amendment will change Cripple Creek will change into a mini Las Vegas strip. Cripple Creek has seen minimum drops in revenues in the past months more than Black Hawk and Central City, the other two gaming towns in Colorado but some of that is because of the launch of the Wildwood casino facility in May, which added seven hundred new slot machines to the current slot machine total in the city. It means more cash is coming into Cripple Creek but the whole pie is being dice into smaller portions. Amendment 50 would give the three gaming towns the chance to expand their hours of operation and improve their limits.

The three towns would have to stage a special election to do so. Recently, the Cripple Creek City County voted unanimously in support of Amendment 50. Cripple Creek mayor Dan Baader hope that they will attract a lot of tourists and local players do not need to go Las Vegas as often as they should.

 

Thursday, April 30 , 2009