Black Hawk, Colorado is a town right up the road from Central City and near Colorado Springs in southwestern Colorado. It used to be a mining town where Victorian miners went to strike gold. Most of the buildings are two or three story and a few are four but now there is a tower being built that looks a little out of place being 33 stories high.
Black Hawk has had small casinos since the early 1990’s but recently the city voted and approved a constitutional amendment that will expand legal gambling by lengths and bounds. Black Hawk can now provide gambling 24 hours per day and the new building has many rooms to house those that come from far away. The expansion has already doubled the state taxes paid that the casinos in nearby Central City and Cripple Creek have brought in.
Ameristar Casino built the 33 story hotel tower that cost a whopping $235 million and is slated to open in October. Casinos in neighboring towns hope that this hotel will bring in customers that will travel to their little towns to gamble in their quaint little establishments as well as gambling at Black Hawk’s large casinos.
Some complain that the constitution says that gambling can only take place in buildings built before World War I, but Black Hawk has gone way beyond that. Most of the casinos in Black Hawk were developed in old factories and anything that could be considered extravagant or exotic, which can only be seen on the inside. One has an 8.000 foot banyan tree that you can’t see from outside. You can only be impressed by the hugeness of this tree from the gaming floor. This seems to be changing now that the expansion is in place. Future developers look forward to building more large and modern buildings to this once sleepy mountain town of 118 residents.
The recent expansion provided new table games with larger betting limits and 24 hour service. The taxes collected will go to Colorado’s thirteen community colleges to further the education of students in the state. Because of the recession, more people are going to community colleges instead of 4 year baccalaureate colleges because education is cheaper and it only takes 2 years to receive an Associate’s degree. Enrollment in community colleges rose 32 percent for the fall 2009 semester. Proponents of the expansion said that it was beneficial to have the community colleges backing their bill.
Gambling opponents argue that state governments appear to be addicted to gambling. They are depending on casinos, slot machines, and sports betting to beef up their ailing economies.
Black Hawk is bringing a little bit of Vegas to the mountains of Colorado. Some people don’t like the changes that the gambling expansion is bringing, but others are happy that they don’t have to travel all the way to Vegas to get that “big” and enticing gambling experience.
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