When the Kansas Legislature wrapped up early Saturday morning the door was closed, for this year anyway, on a bill introduced by Representative Allan Rothlisberg to have Geary County designated a future site of a state owned casino.

Rothlisberg said that he’s not giving up on the bill yet, even though it never got a hearing in the Kansas House.

“That was a long shot anyway. I thought we might be able to have a shot at it because south east Kansas had over seven years to get their act together and put one in there,” Rothlisberg said.

A 2007 law authorized a casino owned by the Kansas Lottery to be built and operated by a private developer in south east Kansas. Local officials argued the investment requirement was too high to attract interest.

In April the Legislature passed a bill lowering that investment requirement.

One of the bills introduced by Rothlisberg would have moved that designation to Geary County.

“That’s still a possibility if they don’t build one, because no body wants to spend the money there. They’re going to have to have one heck of a casino and attractions there to go against the casino’s in north east Oklahoma.”

Rothlisberg said looking at a casino in south east Kansas in a business aspect it would have a hard time, being the same size as the one currently in Dodge City, competing with the large ones just 25 miles away in Oklahoma.

Looking towards the future Rothlisberg said,”What I was kind of kidding around with some people is that come July of 2032, that Geary County would be number one to get a casino.”

When the state passed the bill designating four sites for state owned casinos in 2007 they put a 25 year time frame on it, that time frame runs out in July of 2032.

“With the amount of money that would normally be invested they didn’t want to have competition popping up all over, so that’s why they did it that way,” Rothlisberg explained.

He hopes to be able to get Geary County at the top of that list by the end of that time frame, and in time for a new bill designating future casino sites to go to the legislature.