Jumping the gun, the Menominee Nation has launched a site for job-seekers at its hoped-for Dairyland Park casino. The landing page promises “Opening Soon 
Pending Approval.” (Did you notice how they jumped over that pesky construction phase?) The Forest County Potowatomi aren’t amused, withholding $25 million from the state to, in essence, coerce it into nixing the Menominee project.
“It’s not a question of whether we want the casino here or not or whether we want the jobs or not. I want jobs in Kenosha,” said Gov. Scott Walker (R), who continues to study the issue. He ought to like the aggressive job projections being made by the Menominee: 5,900 casino, construction and related jobs in the Kenosha and 4,375 casino, construction and indirect jobs back in impoverished Menominee County. Walker has until Feb. 19 to decide whether or not Hard Rock Dairyland Park is the way to create jobs in Kenosha or not. It seems like a no-brainer but it’s proven uncommonly vexing for the Badger State.
* Having eked its way out of the Nebraska Legislature, instant racing got 
scrubbed from the November ballot by the state Supreme Court. So it’s ‘wait ’til 2016′ for supporters, who hope to get it on the ballot via petition drive, using property-tax relief as the carrot that will entice signatures and votes. The court decreed that, as written, the constitutional amendment rolled two unrelated issues into one question. “It’s just a shame that the door was slammed on a technicality,” said Fonner Park CEO Hugh Miner, one of the Cornhusker State race executives who was counting on racino revenue as a buffer against competition from neighboring states.
* It’s clobberin’ time for Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange, whose minions could soon smash 1,615 VLTs seized from VictoryLand. The fate of the 
machines hangs on Circuit Judge William Shashy‘s ruling, which won’t come for at least another month, despite the trial of VictoryLand having wrapped up last week. Though he might object to this phrasing, the odds favor Strange, who hasn’t lost an e-bingo court fight yet.
“A former executive with a gambling machine testing company testified that even though the machines have video graphics and sounds resembling slot machines and keno, they are only for entertainment.” The state counters that, per a 2009 precedent, bingo entails the marking of cards and the age-old cry of “Bingo!”, not bells and whistles. “Investigators for the attorney general’s office testified during the trial that they started game at VictoryLand by pushing one button and they didn’t have to do anything else.”
VictoryLand countered that the state failed to present expert testimony nor conduct a forensic inspection of the machines. Meanwhile, the cycle of seizure-and-litigation seems bound to continue, three Alabama casinos having reopened with some of the same VLT titles that VictoryLand had.
