Dec 13 2006
Trouble in River City: Iowa Casinos, Scammers and Smokers
We’ve got trouble my friends right here in River City. Trouble with a capital T that rhymes with C that stands for Casinos. According to the Iowa Gaming Association, there are 14 new casinos being built or completed during 2005-2006. Those casinos will add to what is already there:
Iowa has a total of 19 casinos and pari-mutuel facilities available. The city of Council Bluffs has more casinos than any other casino city in Iowa with a total of 3 casinos.
That’s a lot of casinos when you consider the entire state population could fit easily inside the city of Houston.
With all of the new casinos, trouble is brewing. The first concern is scam artists taking advantage of newly or lightly-trainined casino staff:
Joe Diaz, an assistant director of Division of Criminal Investigation who oversees gaming enforcement, says that many of the new casinos “don’t have their act together” early on and can be the target of scams.
[...]
In June, three men who hit casinos in Dubuque and Worth County were caught at Diamond Jo Worth casino in Northwood. About two-thousand-500-dollars was retrieved from the men.
The second issue is a popular one all over the country, smoking bans. Can you really ban smoking from a casino? Smoking and betting go together like drinking and betting or betting and loosing. It would appear that Iowa is throwing caution to the wind, along with smokers, and joining the non-smoking band-wagon:
Representative Pam Jochum of Dubuque has co-sponsored two bills. One would ban smoking in all public places statewide, and another would leave it to local governments to decide. She says the health implications of smoking demand action.
Some casinos have taken to alternative methods hoping to stop legislation and keep the non-smokers happy:
Some casinos, including Dubuque’s Greyhound Park & Casino, have installed air ventilators to appease the anti-smoking advocates. Using a patented process, the “air displacement” system is designed to push bad air out and recirculate good air.
I’m not exactly sure how these “air displacement systems” are supposed to make casino environments better for non-smokers. Last July, I visited the Dubuque Greyhound Park & Casino and I can tell you, the money they spent on the “air displacement system” was not worth it.
Air displacement system, talk about your casino scams!
