Our Western Heritage

Our Western Heritage
Front Street, Dodge City, circa 1879

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Dodge City casino: some new plans & visitor numbers

The Hutchinson News, May 21, has two different views of the tourism impact of the two different casino proposals for Ford County/Dodge City -- neither set of figures seems to match any research done on the Dodge City location -- research that clearly states most gamblers would be coming from within 50-100 miles from Dodge City.

With gas heading for $4.00 a gallon and higher, seems unlikely that either set of figures will be accurate. And, of course, with casinos going up all over Kansas and Oklahoma, I wouldn't want to be planning much on any of these projections. Only the State of Kansas will win in this casino building orgy, and of course, those selling the land, and constructing the buildings.

Developers present plans for new casino, Hutchinson News:

"...Butler National, hired by Dodge City's Boot Hill Gaming Inc., plans to build a $92.9 million casino, called the Boot Hill Casino and Resort...

The developers said the project would employ 654 full-time workers and could, by 2013, draw up to 418,000 annual visitors traveling from more than two hours away...

...The competing project, the Dodge City Casino Resort, ...said the casino would likely draw 1 million people per year [nee', 1 million visits], 250,000 to 300,000 of whom would come from outside the state or from more than 100 miles away. It would employ at least 377 full-time workers...."


[Compare these numbers with the 2007 research quoted often in public by one of the applicants -- before $4.00 gas -- which states:]

"In order to maintain the quality of life of the area, the additional fiscal and economic costs incurred due to a casino would need to be covered by additional governmental revenues...

"Conversely, benefit-cost ratios of 0.75 shows public benefits are only 75 percent of public costs – costs exceed benefits...

"Since gambling has been legalized and made accessible in several states, the range of pathological gamblers has increased to 1.5 to 5 percent in those states..."

"Distance from Casino in miles and
Annual Spending per Person*


0-10 $ 527.64
10-25 $ 234.23
25-50 $ 114.76
50-75 $ 66.97
75-100 $ 32.22

100-125 $ 13.37
125-150 $ 14.36
150-175 $ 8.99
175-200 $ 3.29

*Estimates by Christiansen Capital Advisors, LLC in current dollar value (2007$)

WSU_Impact_Study_on_Expansion

Best, Uncle George

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