Ho-Chunk Gaming Madison will be open Sunday - Thursday from 10am to 2am and Friday - Saturday 10am - 5am. How many machines are available to play? We currently have 1000+ slot machines available to play. Ho-Chunk Gaming - Madison will recall its required staff to prepare between 400 and 1,300 slot machines.
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Put the dice on ice.
Wisconsin tribes plan to reopen their casinos on May 26 or shortly after, sources said. But those gambling halls will likely have a different and smaller look when they are back in business.
Expect to see fewer slot machines, limited food service, no craps or other table games and no bingo.
But gaming experts expect there will be plenty of gamblers around to feed the machines.
'There is a pent-up demand,' said Alan Meister, an Indian gaming expert and CEO at Meister Economic Consulting. 'There definitely is an appetite for casino gaming.'
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The tribes are expected to initially offer only slot machines because it would be difficult to practice social distancing at a craps table. Slot machines generally provide 80% to 90% of a casino's gaming revenue.
Each tribe is able to set its own guidelines for when it will reopen, what games it will offer and how it will try to keep its customers and employees safe. There may be temperature checks at some casinos and there will likely be additional cleaning staff to disinfect slots machines and furniture.
'We're going to have to be hyper-vigilant,' said Shannon Holsey, president of the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican tribe and the Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Council.
'Our customers are a high-risk group,' Holsey said. 'Our demographic is 63 and over.'
In addition to shutting down table games, tribal casinos are also expected to separate slot machines by using Plexiglas-type shields or placing the machines several feet away from each other.
'We'll probably have very limited food and entertainment,' at the Stockbridge-Munsee tribe's casino in Bowler, Holsey said.
Since Indian gaming was legalized in the 1990s, the casinos have become the economic lifeblood of Wisconsin tribes.
Gamblers lost $1.27 billion in Wisconsin tribal casinos in the 12-month period that ended on June 30, 2019, state records show. The tribes paid $54.6 million of those proceeds, or net win, to the state, as required by the compact agreements between the individual tribes and the state.
The impact of suddenly shutting that income flow has been devastating to the tribes.
'Essentially the tribe doesn’t have a budget right now,' said Tehassi Hill, chairman of the Oneida tribe, near Green Bay. The sudden loss of casino revenue means the tribe's budget is 'shot through with holes right now.'
The situation is similar throughout Indian country in Wisconsin.
Still, Holsey said the tribes knew they had little choice but to shut the doors to their gambling halls as the coronavirus was spreading throughout the state and nation.
'I'm very proud of the tribes and the stance they've taken by putting the safety of their people first,' Holsey said. 'You can't put a price on human life.'
Tribal casinos around the state closed around March 18, as the coronavirus was spreading and events were being canceled and businesses were shutting down.
The casino closings came before Gov. Tony Evers issued his first stay-at-home order.
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As sovereign governments, the tribes were not covered by the Evers order, which was shot down by the state Supreme Court Wednesday. However, each of the states' 11 tribes issued similar orders covering their reservations. Those orders were not affected by the court's action.
Sources said tribes are redoing their floor plans in the hopes of opening on or around May 26, though officials have not said exactly when the gambling halls would reopen.
'We’re not disclosing our operational plans upon reopening,' said Ryan Amundson, spokesman for the Potawatomi casino in Milwaukee. The state's largest casino, located in the Menomonee Valley, pockets about $400 million annually from gamblers, according to calculations based on payments the tribe makes to Milwaukee city and county governments.
The Ho-Chunk tribe, which has casinos in several locations, including Madison and near Wisconsin Dells, has not decided when it would reopen its casinos, a spokesman for the tribe said.
About a dozen Indian casinos have reopened recently in four states, said Meister, the Indian gaming expert. Those casinos, located in Washington state, Oklahoma, Texas and Idaho, are doing a brisk business, Meister said.
Business is 'not going back to the level it was right away,' Meister said, noting that most of the casinos are operating at about half-capacity because the slot machines are spread out. 'But it looks like there are enough customers right off the bat to use that capacity,' he said.
Hill, the Oneida chairman, said he recently saw just how hungry some gamblers were to place bets at a casino.
When the Potawatomi tribe said it would close its Milwaukee casino on March 17, officials at the Oneida tribe started hearing that some Milwaukee gamblers would be visiting their casino, which is located near Green Bay.
'We immediately got calls from Milwaukee casino customers asking if we would be open,' Hill said.
Those calls resulted in the tribe closing its casino the next day — a couple of days earlier than planned. Hill said tribal officials feared a wave of customers coming to Oneida from Milwaukee and putting its customers and tribal members at risk.
'We didn't want to be a major vector' spreading COVID-19,' Hill said.
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Contact Cary Spivak at (414) 550-0070 or cspivak@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @cspivak or Facebook at facebook.com/cary.spivak.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: When Wisconsin tribal casinos reopen, it's likely the slot machines will be the only gambling -- no craps or bingo