Don't Bet on Table Gaming Yet
Senate Bill 66 authored by state Sen. Donald Cravins Sr. , D-Opelousas, which allows the Evangeline Downs Racetrack and Casino to place gaming tables at their Opelousas facility, passed through committee Tuesday and will go to the senate floor. If the tables are allowed to be placed at the track, the facility will become the second land-based casino in the state. "I don't expect it to pass this session.
I really didn't expect it to get out of committee. But it is inevitable that at some point in the near future Opelousas will get gaming tables at that facility. The climate has changed dramatically," Cravins said Wednesday. This is contrary to the original intent in the early 1990s, when voters allowed gambling in the state with the stipulations that there be only one land-based casino and 15 river boat casinos, the later of which must leave the dock for the majority of its operation hours. "That issue will be addressed legislatively at the appropriate time," Cravins said of the one casino law. "At the time the law was passed (for one land based casino in the state) it was done so because of the New Orleans metropolitan area.
It had to do with slot machines at the Fairgrounds racetrack. "After more than a decade of gambling in Louisiana, the state's riverboats stay docked most of the time, truck stop casinos have sprouted like weeds along the state's highways and the racino came to Opelousas to get the slot machines that Lafayette voters would not allow. Now, Cravins says, the track is poised to become a full casino and Lafayette Parish has a video bingo parlor in Carencro which operates slot machine-type gambling devices.
May 19, 2006
Posted By Hector Rodriguez
Staff Editor, CasinoGamblingWeb.com
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