Betting On Gaming.

• Author: MAYER, KATHY
• Position: Orange County, Indiana may receive last available state casino license - Brief Article - Statistical Data Included

Why not grant the last casino license to Orange County?

With one spin left on Indiana's gaming-license roulette wheel, many in Orange County hope it stops on this tourist-ready, economically strapped neck of the Hoosier National Forest.

So far denied the last one of 11 authorized casino licenses--all granted to Ohio River or northwest Indiana riverboat casinos--this landlocked county is rolling out a whole new idea to convince the Indiana legislature that gaming is their answer. The new ploy: history, playing off Orange County's colorful past, with gaming perhaps housed in a vintage 1920 museum setting.

The county's first try for a gaming license in 1993 hinged on a casino on Patoka Lake. Those cards were folded when the Army Corps of Engineers, who controls the lake, said no. Two years later, the county tried for a "boat in a moat," a casino in a manmade lake. It passed the Indiana House, but not the Senate. Next year, Rep. Jerry Denbo says he'll again introduce legislation.

"We're still in the quest," agrees Alan Barnett, president of the Orange County Tourism Commission and executive secretary of the French Lick/West Baden Chamber of Commerce. "We're greatly dependent on the Indiana General Assembly and whether they're willing to listen to our pleas."

"We've got all kinds of reasons to go after this," Denbo says, citing economic need and community support. "We're the No. 1 county in unemployment," topping 8 percent in late summer. "We've got the lowest percapita income. We've got gaming all around us. And 85 percent of the people in French Lick and West Baden support it."

There's no question gaming could have a huge economic impact. In nearby Harrison County, for example, the 1998 debut of the Caesars riyerboat and this fall's opening of its 503-room hotel have so far meant $425 million in capital projects, 2,300 jobs, nearly $65 million in wages each year, annual property taxes of $1.3 million and contributions of about $7 million a year to community foundations in Harrison and Floyd counties.

Similar stories could be told in four other southern Indiana counties with riverboats--Dearborn, Ohio, Switzerland and Vanderburgh--or in northwest Indiana, where Lake and LaPorte counties host five riverboat casinos.

Besides the world's largest gaming vessel, stocked with 2,800 slot machines and 142 gaming tables for up to 5,000 passengers, the Caesars' resort includes the new...