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Kansas sues U.S. Interior Dept to block Wyandotte Nation casino near Wichita. August 16, 2020. The State of Kansas has sued the U.S. Department of the Interior to block construction of a Wyandotte Nation casino near Wichita. The lawsuit was filed last Monday by Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt in U.S. District Court in Kansas.

Wichita gamblers could have two casinos within 20 minutes next year if everything goes as planned for the Wyandotte Nation of Oklahoma.

Billy Friend, chief of the Wyandotte Nation, said construction crews could break ground on a casino in Park City by the end of the summer and gamblers could be working the slots by 2021.

The new casino would be the anchor of a massive redevelopment of 100-plus acres at the failed Wild West World amusement park near Interstate 135 and East 77th Street North, about 10 miles north of downtown Wichita.

Some local officials are excited at the prospect of economic development, job creation and tourism and nervous about the potential for gambling addiction and mental health problems.

“This is a developing situation,” Sedgwick County Commissioner Lacey Cruse said. “There’s probably a long ways to go still, but I think the opportunity for economic development and jobs is pretty exciting. Anytime we can bring people from out of town to an area to increase sales tax and collect that sales tax, that’s a good thing.”

“The flip-side to that, though, is we all know that gambling can become a problem for some folks,” she said. “I am concerned about that, but I’m excited at the economic opportunities.”

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The federal government granted the tribe — headquartered about 200 miles away in Wyandotte, Oklahoma — a land trust in Park City allowing gaming in late May, clearing a path for a tribal casino just north of Wichita.

The Wyandotte Nation runs the Lucky Turtle and Wyandotte Nation casinos in Oklahoma and the 7th Street Casino in Kansas City, Kansas.

The types of games allowed at the Park City casino will depend on whether Friend and other leaders can successfully negotiate a tribal gaming compact with Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly.

“Hopefully, we can negotiate in good faith for a compact,” Friend said, adding that he’s willing to negotiate a revenue share agreement with the state.

The governor’s office was silent on whether Kelly wants a casino in Park City, although in a statement, a spokeswoman said Kelly will comply with federal law.

Whether Kelly could — or would want to try — to deny a compact to the Wyandotte remains an open question.

“There’s currently a compact in place with four other tribes in Kansas,” Friend said. “They have a zero-revenue-share compact, so the state receives no revenue from those compacts. In Oklahoma, currently, we share four to six percent of all of our Class III gaming machines and 10 percent of our table games.”

State Rep. Brenda Landwehr, R-Wichita, was a leader of the 2007 campaign against allowing a state-owned destination casino in Sedgwick County and slot machines at the now-closed Wichita Greyhound Park. She said it’s disappointing that even after that vote, a casino could slip into Park City another way.

“Sedgwick County spoke loud and clear they didn’t want a casino,” Landwehr said.

She said the question of whether the tribe can be made to provide some revenue to the state is an important one, since its operation will cut into the earnings of the Kansas Star Casino 25 miles south.

Kansas Star is managed by Boyd Gaming, although it’s technically legally owned by the state and operated as an arm of the Kansas Lottery. The state gets a share of the profit.

The state’s contract with Boyd guarantees that “for 25 years, there wouldn’t be any more casinos” in south-central Kansas, Landwehr said. That moratorium runs until 2032.

“There’s a huge penalty, so does (allowing a casino in Park City) put us into violation of our agreement with the state-owned casinos and their management teams?” Landhwer said.

Just about every year since the 2007 vote that forced Greyhound Park owner Phil Ruffin to close the dog track, he’s tried to get a revote on allowing slot machines there and been denied, in part because of the conflict with the Kansas Star contract, Landwehr said.

“As we’ve talked about this over the years, expanding gambling or whatever, the (legislators) said, ‘Nope, the casinos, the casinos, the penalty will be too huge,’” Landwehr said.

Dana Walden, assistant city administrator for Park City, said the city is excited and does not plan to stand in the way of a casino opening.

“We’re very excited to work with Chief Friend, and we are excited to work with him like we would any developer that wants to come to our city because we’re looking forward to opportunities for our citizens and also for people within the Sedgwick County [and] Wichita-metro area as well,” she said.

“We know this has been going on for a long period of time and it’s kind of been a long, hard-fought battle for them.”

State surprised

The Kansas Attorney General’s Office has repeatedly warned that opening a casino in Sedgwick County is illegal.

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But the Bureau of Indian Affairs approved acquiring a little more than 10 acres of land in Park City “for gaming and other purposes” for the Wyandotte Nation, according to the Federal Register, reversing a 2014 decision not to allow the tribe to put the land into trust for a casino.

CJ Glover, a spokesperson for Attorney General Derek Schmidt, said the state was surprised by the reversal.

“The attorney general’s office has not been made aware of new or continued efforts to place this land into trust since that 2014 denial, so the current announcement through the news media was surprising. We are reviewing the situation.”

Friend said the Indian Affairs decision would allow the planned casino to open with Class II games, which include bingo, some slot machines and certain card games like poker.

But he wants to be able to offer Class III games, which include black jack, roulette and all slot machines. That would require a compact with the state.

Beyond allowing gambling, moving the land to a federal trust for a tribe removes it from state and local tax rolls and exempts it from zoning regulations.

Friend said he’s committed to making sure the money raised at the casino stays in the local community.

“We’re very community oriented,” he said. “So people who say that the money’s just going to leave Kansas and go to Oklahoma, that’s not true. We plan on being a very integral part of the community.”

Previous attempts

Efforts to site a casino in or near Park City go back 27 years, said Emil Bergquist, a Republican state legislator who previously served as Park City mayor and City Council member.

It began in 1993 when the Wyandotte Tribe bought the land where it now plans to place the casino, Bergquist said. City residents raised a petition against it and the tribe backed away from the plan, he said.

In 2004, the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska sought to put a casino on a nearby property, with former Wichita Mayor Bob Knight fronting for the project. That proposal was bounced around for several years but never built.

The last attempt was the 2007 election where Sedgwick County voters rejected a casino and Ruffins plan for slots at the dog track.

Spurned by Sedgwick County voters, the state approved the Kansas Star Casino just across the county line in Mulvane.

An economic analysis referenced in a 2011 federal court filing found that Kansas could lose $23 million or more in tax revenue per year if the Wyandotte Nation were allowed to open a competing casino about 25 miles away.

“There’s only a certain amount of entertainment dollars to go around,” said Bergquist.

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Bergquist said Park City has done just fine without a casino so far.

“It’s been a healthy community through thick and thin,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any urgent need for a big fix for something that’s not broken and so far never has been broken.”

Jonathan Shorman of the Wichita Eagle and Kansas City Star contributed reporting.

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©2020 The Wichita Eagle (Wichita, Kan.)

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What Is The Nearest Casino To Wichita Kansas Casino

This is a list of casinos in Kansas.

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References[edit]

1. ^Stephens, Ken (December 16, 2009). 'Dodge casino opens doors'. Garden City Telegram. p. 1. Retrieved August 12, 2014 – via Newspapers.com.
2. ^'With a bang — Kansas Crossing Casino and Hotel opens doors'. The Morning Sun. Pittsburg, KS. March 31, 2017. Retrieved 2017-04-01.

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