The man who couldn’t make up his mind

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) has become the Hamlet of the casino industry, torn between varying tribal interests and uncommitted to decisive action. He’ll have to make some decision on the Menominee Nation‘s Hard Rock International project in Kenosha by Feb. 19 because that’s all the time Washington will give him. If Walker’s long-awaited decision can be predicted from recent developments, the Menominee are in for a disappointment. One could so far as to say that Walker’s people are drafting a compact that’s designed to fail.

Already, the Bureau of Indian Affairs has struck a provision whereby the Potowatomi Tribe would be reimbursed by the state for revenue shortfalls. Now a compact provision calling for the Menominee to make the Potowatomi whole is drawing scrutiny. Department of Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch advised Walker that the state could be doubly exposed in a Potowatomi court challenge of the compact. One, the state could again find itself responsible for reimbursing Potowatomi losses.

Second, the Potowatomis’ 50-mile exclusivity radius could be found to have been breached, releasing the tribe from its payment obligations to the state and putting the latter on the hook for millions of dollars in reimbursements: “Overall, in each of the scenarios … the potential exists for the State to lose hundreds of millions of dollars if the Potawatomi successfully challenges approval of the proposed Kenosha casino.” The Potowatomi are already gearing up to pursue a big give-back from the Walker administration. More coin would slip through its fingers thanks to Ho-Chunk tribal compact language that already allows it to reduce its payments in the case of a Kenosha casino.

As Potowatomi spokesman George Ermert put it to reporters, “It’s clear that [the Menominee compact] … does not remove the risk that a Kenosha casino could put a substantial hole in Wisconsin’s budget.” All Walker has to do is point to that theoretical hole, say he’s doing what’s best for a fiscally strapped state and he can duck any promises the Menominee think he might have made.

* What do you do when your casino revenues are only 54% of what they were nine years ago? Cut and run? Not if you’re Pinnacle Entertainment. Faced with continuing revenue slippage at Boomtown Casino New Orleans, it invested $20 million in a 150-room hotel. This is something that’s been on Boomtown’s wish list for a long time and is no longer deferred. Can it reverse the revenue decline? That’s a pretty heavy burden to place on a modest hotel, especially when the larger Louisiana market has declined only 7% in the 2005-2014 period.