Altoona, Iowa — The license of the Grand Falls Casino near Larchwood and the Hard Rock Casino in Sioux City have been renewed for another year, along with those of the other 17 state-regulated casinos.
Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission administrator, Brian Ohorilko says it was pretty routine.
He says the impact of the gaming industry on the state increased this year.
He says that also includes millions of dollars the casinos generate for their non-profit license holders, which flows out into the community. Ohorilko says the industry should be proud of the one-point-three-six-Billion-dollar impact on the state.
Iowa Gaming Association president, Wes Ehrecke spoke to the commission about the casino impact. He says they have fulfilled the mission set by the legislature when they approved gambling 30 years ago.
Ehrecke says the impact increased in several areas.
Also, The Hard Rock Casino in Sioux City agreed to a fine of 20-thousand dollars at the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission meeting this week for violations of rules. Ohorilko says the Hard Rock agreed to the fine after they experienced outages in security camera coverage between December of 2017 and August of 2018.
Ohorilko says the large number of outages figured into the amount of the fine along with the lag in reporting the problem.
Hard Rock general manager Jim Franke apologized to the commission.
He says the supervisors knew the procedures and it was frustrating to find they were not followed.
Franke says they have taken steps to ensure the surveillance video is handled properly.
The fine against the Hard Rock could have been as high as 25-thousand dollars.
