Ohio Casinos to Hit Mich., Ind. Gambling Taxes

FILE - In this Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2007 file photo, fireworks mark the grand opening of the MGM Grand...

FILE - In this Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2007 file photo, fireworks mark the grand opening of the MGM Grand Detroit. Ohio voter approval of casinos in Toledo and three other cities has Michigan officials and gambling interests asking if Detroit's lucrative $1.3 billion casino franchise could be at risk. (AP Photo/Tony Ding, File)

(AP)

Ohio voters have approved the opening of casinos in Toledo and three other cities, leaving officials and gambling interests in neighboring Indiana and Michigan worried that millions of dollars in gambling revenues — and taxes — are at risk.

Indiana's casinos pay more than $900 million in state and local taxes annually. A report released last month by the Indiana Legislative Services Agency predicted the competition from Ohio would lead to the state losing more than $100 million of that slice of the gambling pie.

Any loss of casino tax revenue would also hurt Detroit and Michigan, which already face towering budget deficits. The state took a $121 million share of the Detroit casinos' $1.36 billion in revenues last year.

On Tuesday, Ohio voters approved a ballot issue to allow one casino each in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus and Toledo.

"We're cautiously optimistic there's going to be a bit of an impact but not a profound impact," Richard Kalm, executive director of the Michigan Gaming Control Board, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. He said Detroit's casinos get most of their business from people within 50 miles and are "not as much of a destination market as, say, Las Vegas or Atlantic City."

The analysis released Oct. 19 by the Indiana Legislative Services Agency, the General Assembly's nonpartisan research arm, predicts that three casinos in southeastern Indiana — which rely heavily on patrons from the Cincinnati area — would be hit the hardest.

The Hollywood Casino in Lawrenceburg, Grand Victoria Casino in Rising Sun and Belterra Casino near Vevay — all downstream from Cincinnati — could lose 38 percent of their admissions and $260 million in gambling revenues in the first year after the Ohio casinos open, amounting to a $93 million cut in the taxes they pay, according to the report.

Furthermore, Hoosier Park's casino in Anderson, about 25 miles northeast of Indianapolis, would lose gambling customers to a new Toledo casino, costing the state another $9 million, it said.