Honolulu Lite
WHAT'S the difference between a horse-racing track and a gambling boat? A barge can't crash into a race track. And that's the basic problem with shipboard gambling. There was no glory
for riverboatDuring a break from serious columnist-type business at the recent national newspaper columnists conference in Louisville, Ky., we were supposed to visit the "Glory of Rome," a new riverboat casino berthed on the Indiana side of the Ohio River.
The Indiana legislature allowed the controversial casino boat to be built, but stipulated that it actually had to cruise the river.
The problem is casinos are as technologically complex as Cape Canaveral and when you put them on water, you've multiplied all the things that can go wrong. With the "Glory of Rome," they went wrong with a vengeance.
First, the casino got around the "cruising" rule by simply drifting downriver on a cable a few hundred yards and then motoring back up. But as the finicky Ohio River silt began to fill up around the 450-foot long riverboat it couldn't even do that. It shut down. Then just a few days before it was to reopen and a gaggle of degenerate columnist-type gamblers rolled into town, a barge crashed into the casino boat.
I look forward to my yearly trips to the mainland to refresh my memory that gambling is a bad thing. Frankly, I was disappointed that I was unable to drop a load on a brand new gambling boat. But I got my reality check by spending an afternoon at Churchill Downs, where, other than winning $20.40 on a long-shot filly named "Hawaiian Charm," and tasting a few mint juleps (it's mandatory), the afternoon proved painfully unprofitable.
Not to its glory, the "Glory of Rome" was closed three weeks, losing $500,000 a day and, well, that's gotta hurt. But the incident is instructive, especially considering Honolulu's flirtation with shipboard gambling.
I'VE made an informal study of gambling ships, meaning that I've lost heaps of money on several of them. And I've found that the best gambling ships are ones that are not actually in the water. In Kansas City, Mo., and Vicksburg, Miss., for instance, the "riverboat" casinos were actually buildings constructed to look like riverboats and placed near but not truly on the water.
It's pretty easy to figure how the transformation from riverboat to boat-like building happens, given the "Glory of Rome" fiasco.
Voters approve riverboat gambling. Then the casino operators go back and whine that, well, you know, rivers are dangerous. It would be so much better to put the boat on the SIDE of the river instead of in it. And, gee, if you're going to put a boat on land, you might as well make it out of concrete. And so on.
That didn't happen in Indiana. The state legislature specifically said the "Glory of Rome" would be a boat and would cruise the Ohio River. The result: Silt Happens. So do barge accidents. Because, rivers really ARE dangerous.
And so are oceans, which is why, as soon as the Hawaii legislature approves any kind of shipboard gambling, the operators will whine that they be allowed to just tie the boat up to the pier, and, while they're at it, put the boat ON the pier and, heck, let's just turn the pier into a casino. And while we're at it, let's put the whole thing in Kapolei.
That's what I'd bet would happen. And despite my gambling track record, I think I'd win.
Charles Memminger, winner of
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
awards in 1994 and 1992, writes "Honolulu Lite"
Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Write to him at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, 96802
or send E-mail to charley@nomayo.com or
71224.113@compuserve.com.
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