Indiana Casinos

Casino Craps Gambling in the State of Indiana

The following casinos are located in Indiana. Almost all of them offer craps games:

Like many states in the American Midwest, Indiana offers carefully regulated casino gambling. Riverboat gambling is allowed in the state, though land-based casinos are illegal. Gambling revenues bring hundreds of millions of dollars into state coffers every year. There are ten casinos in the state, listed above.

You can find craps table at all ten of these casinos. So you aren't very far from a Vegas-style game of craps anytime you are driving through Indiana.

Gaming and gambling in Indiana is overseen by the Indiana Gaming Commission, which is comprised of seven individuals who are appointed by the governor. Multiple restrictions apply to how the gaming commission can be composed. No more than four members of the commission can be from the same political party, for example, and at least one member of the commission must have some type of law enforcement experience.

Most casino gambling in Indiana is riverboat gambling. Some of the riverboats might depart and actually go on a cruise, while others might stay docked, but either way, you're playing on a boat. In many places, riverboat casino gambling used to only consist of boats that departed, but that's changed in recent years.

Indiana also has a popular lottery, the Hoosier Lottery, but this is overseen separately from the casino riverboat gambling scene. The overseeing body for the Hoosier Lottery is called, appropriately enough, the Indiana Hoosier Lottery Commission.

Besides the riverboat casinos and the lottery, Indiana also has two horsetracks, Hoosier Park in Anderson, and Indiana Downs in Shelbyville. These are true horsetracks, where the betting is limited to the ponies. (Many locations now have racinos, which have horse betting but also offer slot machines, but the horsetracks in Indiana are not racinos.)

The History of Gambling in Indiana

Gambling was a big time industry in Indiana in the 1930's and 1940's. The town of Jefferson, Indiana was known regionally as "Little Las Vegas". Casinos and race tracks flourished.

In 1948, all of this came to an end. Authorities decided to stop looking the other way, launching a massive raid in Jefferson to take out the various gambling halls. The legacy of this raid shaded gambling debates for the next fifty years.

The Indiana Riverboat Gaming Act

Four years later, riverboat gambling was legalized by the Indiana legislature. The law allowed for a maximum of ten riverboats. The first such casino opened in 1995.

The Lottery and Horse Track Racing

In 1989, Indiana citizens voted to approve a lottery act. Since that time, Indiana's government has supported a lottery in one form or another.

Five years later, the Hoosier Park Horse Track opened, bringing in a new era of horse track betting to Indiana. Horse racing came to Fort Wayne and Merryville, Indiana the next year.

New Gaming Initiatives

Currently, forces are at work to privatize the Hoosier Lottery. There are also initiatives to relax restrictions on video gaming machines in bars, convenience stores and other smaller venues.

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