I just am linking to this because I like the headline…and I want to make a point about American casino evolution. Along the way I’ll go off on a tangent that no one will find comprehensible. From the Des Moines Register:
The Wild Rose Casino of Emmetsburg has never been a genuine riverboat, and state regulators decided Tuesday that it can quit pretending to be any type of water vessel.
The Wild Rose opened last year under a provision of Iowa’s riverboat gambling law that permitted casinos to be classified as “moored barges” if they were simply built over water instead of being vessels that could navigate on rivers or lakes.
State lawmakers have since decided that that requirement – a vestige of a law originally requiring all riverboats to offer cruises – was unnecessary, and the Legislature repealed the water requirement, effective July 1.
Under action Tuesday by the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission, the Emmetsburg casino will be classified as a “gambling structure” that can be permanently drydocked.
Wild Rose extends over part of a 12.5-acre pond that was excavated on the site.
Riffing on the headline, I like the idea of an anthropomorphic casino that is deluded into believing it’s really a boat. How about this for a children’s story: a casino boat..er, barge keeps on talking about how it is really a boat, and how it only wants to sail the open seas (or rivers). But its owners get a better ROI by keeping it dry-docked and having non-stop admissions (I’d put the ROI thing in, too; you can’t start teaching finance too young). All the boats, passing by, make fun of the casino barge, and things look sad.
Then one day, there’s a big flood, and the casino barge somehow gets an engine and carries everyone to safety: it’s free well drinks and dollar shrimp cocktail all the way to port for the frightened villagers/patrons. So the much-maligned casino barge finally saves the day.
Maybe I should go into juvenile fiction…or maybe not.
If you’re still reading, here’s the serious gambling history/business bit: This is a natural part of the evolution of casinos in the Midwest and Upper South. While originally they were confined to boats that had to cruise and had restrictive limits, operating rules have been liberalized over the past decade and a half. Allowing casinos on dry land (I feel like I’m critiquing Waterworld or something here) is really the logical continuation of this process.