Indiana casinos are still open, at least for now.
However, the future is unclear as the state soars on as one of the biggest COVID-19 hotspots in the country.
The number of daily new cases in the Hoosier State is now the highest in the US per million residents.
Those numbers could lead to some big changes for Indiana’s gambling industry.
Avoiding another shutdown of Indiana casinos
Casinos around Indiana are doing everything they can to avoid another shutdown.
The first round of closures lasted for three months. That led to millions of dollars in lost revenue for the industry.
It also led to tons of permanent layoffs and furloughs for casino workers around the state.
Casinos are already closed for business in neighboring Illinois, and a handful of Michigan’s tribal casinos are closed as well.
That’s a situation that Indiana doesn’t want to go through again, but it might end up being necessary as the weeks go on. It all depends on if Gov. Holcomb wants to stick with the current plan for handling the virus.
Gov. Holcomb’s Indiana COVID plan
Indiana has been working with its current COVID-19 plan for a handful of weeks now.
That plan takes things one county at a time instead of imposing a blanket mandate on the entire state.
Under the current plan, every county in the state is assigned a color based on its number of COVID-19 cases.
- Blue Counties: Things are great, little COVID spread
- Yellow Counties: Moderate community COVID spread
- Orange Counties: Alarming spread of COVID
- Red Counties: Danger! Very high spread of COVID
Indiana has a map of each county to help keep track of which areas are which colors. That map is updated once a week.
Right now, all of the state’s 92 counties are either red or orange.
Coronavirus rules for casinos
Casinos have to follow different rules depending on the color of the county they’re in.
For example, once a county hits red territory, the capacity of casinos in the area automatically decreases by 15%.
Casinos in orange and red counties also have to section off special areas for eating, drinking and smoking. In other words, no more drinking or smoking while you sit at a slot machine or any other game inside of casinos.
Here’s a quick look at the status of each of Indiana’s casinos based on the county they’re in:
- Belterra Casino: Orange
- Hollywood Lawrenceburg: Red
- Rising Star Casino: Orange
- Indiana Grand Casino: Red
- Harrah’s Hoosier Park: Orange
- Tropicana Evansville: Orange
- Caesars Southern Indiana: Orange
- Majestic Star Casinos: Red
- Ameristar East Chicago: Red
- Blue Chip Casino: Orange
- French Lick Casino: Red
- Horseshoe Hammond: Red
The color codes for each county update with the state’s map every Wednesday.
With the way things have been trending for Indiana as a whole, it’s unfortunately more likely that your go-to spot will be adding more restrictions as time goes on.
Local city governments can also impose more restrictions if they want, so these color-coded rules are only the bare minimum.
Since things can differ from place-place, get in contact with your local casino for its full list of COVID-19 rules and restrictions before visiting.
