The Wisconsin’s Menominee Tribe wants to partner with the Seminole Tribe to build a new Hard Rock casino in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The only problem is that the project needs government approval. To circumvent the political red tape, the two tribes have come up with a novel approach.
The tribes are offering the state $220 million to help fund a new arena for the Milwaukee Bucks in exchange for approval to build the casino. “Our $220 million proposal eliminates a big political problem and creates a major advantage to state taxpayers,” Menominee Chairman Gary Besaw said at a news conference in Milwaukee earlier this week. “We want Wisconsin to stay big league.”
As tempting as the offer is, the government isn’t biting…yet. Governor Scott Walker’s secretary, Mike Huebsch, shrugged off the proposal and criticized the tribes for not directly going to the state to lay out its plans. “We’re finding out through news releases,” Huebsch said, as quoted by the Journal Sentinel. “When you get to the point that you’re negotiating by news release, you realize that there isn’t any validity to these offers.”
On paper, the deal looks like a slam dunk for the state. It can help fund the proposed arena, which already has a pledge of $150 million from the new Bucks owners, Wesley Edens and Marc Lasry, and an extra $100 million from former owner Herb Kohl. But everything isn’t as easy as it looks.
For one, the Menominee tribe has been clamoring to build a casino in Kenosha for over a decade. If it hasn’t made any inroads in that time, there’s obviously a lot of back-channel discussions to get through. Then there’s the issue of existing casinos in the state, namely the Potawatomi in Milwaukee and the Ho Chunk casinos spread throughout the state. These establishments are unlikely to support a new casino, especially one located between Milwaukee and Chicago, that can eat into their market shares. Plus, the Potawatomi tribe has an agreement with the state from 2005 that requires the state to compensate the tribe for any potential revenue losses in the event a new casino opened in Kenosha.
Knowing all of that, Besaw and Allen are still optimistic that the state could change its stance. To sweeten the pot, the two are also pledging a $275 million bond to cover any potential state losses from the Potawatomi and Ho-Chunk casinos and an estimated $1.2 billion in Kenosha gaming proceeds the tribe has committed to the state.
