The chances are good that Iowa lawmakers will once more take into account prohibiting its state gaming company from authorizing extra on line casino licenses.
Iowa Rep. Bobby Kaufmann says he’ll reintroduce a measure to ban the state from authorizing extra business on line casino licenses. A moratorium on new gaming concessions was lifted on June 30, 2024. (Picture: The Each day Iowan)
Iowa is dwelling to 19 business casinos. The trade efficiently petitioned state lawmakers in 2022 legislative to pump the brakes on greenlighting new casinos for 2 years.
Lawmakers agreed with the on line casino foyer that Iowa’s gaming market was at or close to a saturation level. With casinos opening in neighboring Nebraska, the Legislature joined the Iowa gaming trade in placing the on line casino setting on maintain to find out if extra competitors may very well be supported.
The moratorium ended June 30, 2024. The Iowa Racing & Gaming Fee (IRGC) has already fielded curiosity from a on line casino developer — the Cedar Rapids Growth Group — which by its partnership with Peninsula Pacific Leisure needs to construct a on line casino resort within the state’s second most populated metropolis.
Moratorium Momentum
The Iowa Legislature adjourned for the yr in April with out extending the on line casino moratorium. Home lawmakers had permitted laws to elongate the non permanent freeze by 5 years by June 2029, however the Senate didn’t act on the measure.
Rep. Bobby Kaufmann (R-Wilton) championed the failed extension. He advised the Iowa Capital Dispatch final week that he intends to reintroduce the measure when the lawmaking physique convenes for its 2025 session.
I didn’t provide the modification final yr to have it go the Home simply to desert my efforts,” Kaufmann mentioned. “I actually plan to reintroduce it subsequent yr.”
Sen. Jason Schultz (R-Schleswig), who heads the Iowa Senate’s State Authorities Committee, was answerable for stalling Kaufmann’s on line casino invoice after fielding the statute following its Home passage. Schultz mentioned he’ll ballot his chamber colleagues once more concerning the situation if Kaufman reintroduces the on line casino moratorium and it arrives in his chamber.
Any choice can be run by the caucus to resolve what route we’d prefer to go,” Schultz defined.
Timing of the measure can be important. The IRGC detailed that if the Cedar Rapids Growth Group formally applies for a gaming concession, the state company will seemingly vote on the venture in early February 2025.
Earlier than then, the state gaming regulatory is commissioning an financial affect report on permitting a on line casino in Cedar Rapids. If the market research exhibits {that a} Cedar Rapids on line casino would additional develop the state gaming trade and never considerably harm present licensees, the IRGC may log off on the event as early as Feb. 5, 2025.
Race In opposition to Clock
Even when Kaufmann had been to rally up satisfactory assist for his on line casino moratorium invoice once more within the Home and state senators grow to be extra keen to again the measure, the statute would presumably face a tough timeline.
With the Legislature convening on January 13 and the IRGC probably voting on the Cedar Rapids on line casino on February 5, which means Kaufmann’s invoice would want to breeze by Home and Senate committees, obtain full ground concerns in every chamber — and subsequent majority votes — and garner Gov. Kim Reynolds’ (R) signature in much less a month.
With weekends and Martin Luther King Jr. Day on January 20, that leaves simply 16 session days for the on line casino moratorium to be signed into regulation earlier than the IRGC would possibly grant the Cedar Rapids on line casino pitch a gaming allow. If Reynolds’ signature comes after the IRGC motion, the license can be grandfathered into the statute.
