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COLUMBUS, Ohio – Developers of four new Ohio casinos looked eagerly to the future Wednesday, even as opponents concocted plans to stymie their efforts and surrounding states braced for economic losses.
Penn National Gaming Inc. President Dan Wilmott showed off the site where a 300,000-square-foot Hollywood Casino-Columbus employing 2,000 people is expected to materialize by the end of 2012.
“I know there’s been a lot of things said by the opposition, a lot of mistruths, a lot of blatant lies about what the casino will bring to the city of Columbus, to the state of Ohio,” Wilmott said. “I can assure you that we’re going to develop here, we’re going to create these jobs, and we’re going to get people back to work.”
Republican state lawmakers unhappy with the vote began work immediately on a 2010 ballot measure, however. State Rep. Clyde Evans said he plans a constitutional amendment that makes changes to the terms of the casino deal, including increasing the tax rate from 33 percent to 60 percent. That measure would need approval by a legislature where political control is mixed.
Penn National officials enthusiastically pushed the Ohio facilities’ benefits. They pledged to assuage the concerns of their rivals, work cooperatively with restaurant and hotel operators worried about competition, and wow city planners with architectural renderings.
Penn National joined with Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert in an expensive ballot campaign that touted the jobs that casinos in Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati and Toledo would bring to a state where unemployment has topped 10 percent.
After a campaign that topped 2008’s $40 million in presidential campaign spending, the pro-casino Ohio Jobs & Growth Committee turned around a historically anti-gambling state that had rejected expanded gambling four times in the past 20 years. The pro-casino campaign spent $21 for every “yes” vote.
Victory came despite warnings from the opposing TruthPAC, backed by MTR Gaming Inc. Chairman Jeffrey Jacobs, that the jobs numbers were exaggerated and the lengthy constitutional amendment had other problems.
