Blackhawk, a casino town outside of Denver, is making a statement this week as it becomes the first American municipality to join the National Association Against iGaming (NAAiG). It’s a major statement from a small town whose entire revenue stream is based on getting players to make the 50-minute drive from Denver to play at land-based casinos.
The town council made the move after hearing a presentation from NAAiG Vice Chair Jason Gumer during a recent meeting. Gumer’s anti-online casino talk hit the right chords with council members with his dire predictions of 1,200 lost jobs and $129 million in lost income if Colorado were to legalize igaming. “If iGaming comes, you will not see another casino opened, brick and mortar, again. You’re not going to see companies like Monarch, who have invested hundreds of millions of dollars to build new properties, to grow jobs. It’s going to stop,”
Gumer said in comments reported on by The Mountain Ear.
Gumer has actually already enjoyed some success, as he pointed out to council members. “There was talk this year that Colorado was going to see an iGaming bill,” he said. “Before it got into NAAG, we mobilized. We got our Colorado Gaming Association to vote 5-7 to oppose iGaming but this is going to come back.”
He also pointed out that Coloradans have already been somewhat weary of an igaming expansion. In 2014, voters shot down an igaming bill by a margin of 70 percent.
Blackhawk Mayor David Spellman piled on the idea of igaming in general with his own worst-case-scenario adding, “Can you imagine when you can just gamble at work, even? I mean, this is a scourge. And so I think through the education that Jason’s talking about is the way to combat it.”