Were there any surprises in my article yesterday about USA Today’s ranking of America’s top ten casinos? Were your favorite places to play missing from the twenty contenders for the top ten spots? Have you gambled in any of these casinos that made the cut and always left a loser? Would your top ten finishers have been very, very different from the published list? Would the twenty casinos the paper’s readers had to pick from included other choices? Perhaps some that wouldn’t be classed as resorts? And why wan’t Southern California Gaming Guide’s favorite Barona on that list anyway?
Articles I’ve read do not tell us the criteria USA Today used to pick the finalists. Nor how their readers voted for the top ten. But it certainly seems that the main criteria for making the twenty contenders list wasn’t lucky or loose machines in the casinos. It was the amenities offered to the resort visitors to ensure a memorable visit.
I have found a good article at GamingZion.com complete with photographs that shows what might have swayed the judges to include three of the top 10 in their list of contenders: Thunder Valley in California near San Francisco, French Lick in Southern Indiana, and Red Rock Resort in Summerlin near Las Vegas. I won’t repeat the details here, but you can read the article and see the pictures yourself. You’ll agree the facilities are magnificent. The machines? Well that might be another story. I don’t know.
I have not gambled at any of the paper’s top ten except Pechanga, and Harrah's Resort Southern California, so I don’t have a lot of substance to add to GamingZion’s article, but being a relocated Hoosier, I will add a few words about Indiana’s only casino on the list: French Lick Resort. I haven’t gambled at French Lick, either, but I grew up in Southern Indiana about 60 miles west of the French Lick / West Baden area. My generation knew French Lick as the birthplace of basketball star Larry Bird, and the subject of somewhat questionable and risque jokes about the town’s name.
French Lick is a national historic landmark. The resort is set in 2,600 acres of the breathtaking Hoosier National Forest. The two hotels were originally built in the late 1800’s because of the healing properties of the sulfur springs nearby. The casino was a $382 million restoration and expansion added in 2006.
You don’t often think of Indiana as the home or vacation spot of famous people, but the hotel housed its share of celebrities. Bing Crosby stayed there. Abbott and Costello did a war bond drive there. The 1924 PGA tournament was held there. The site was a favorite of boxer Joe Louis and musician Irving Berlin. It was also the training site for both the Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox in 1943-44.
Despite its reputation, the hotel was never “officially” used as a gambling hall, nor, contrary to legend, did gangster Al Capon ever stay there. Local stories say that the owner met Capone on the hotel steps and turned him away.
The rich and famous would vacation at the springs hotels for extended periods of time. Located between Louisville and Indianapolis, luminaries and the social elite would take a train to the Kentucky Derby and then stay at the French Lick Hotel until the Indianapolis 500. The owner Thomas Taggart served 3 terms as mayor of Indianapolis and briefly as senator. It was through these channels that the French Lick Springs Resort found itself the unofficial headquarters of the Democratic Party.
When the stock market crashed in 1929, the hotel closed and was sold to the Jesuits for a dollar. They operated a seminary in the buildings known as West Baden College until 1985. It was listed as a National Historic Landmark in 1974, but the building suffered considerable neglect over the years. Indiana Landmarks and an anonymous donor spent over $200,000 stabilizing the structure which was then sold in 1994 to a development company that included Grand Casinos Inc. The hotels and grounds received multimillion dollar renovations under the direction of Bill, Gayle, and their son Carl Cook, returning the property to the grandeur of days of yore. In 2007 the French Lick Resort was born.
Gambling was illegal in Indiana from inception: it was written into the original state constitution in 1851. The legislature did not approve Indiana’s first four gaming houses until 1996. The law required that they not be built on state land, so Indiana’s first casinos were all riverboat casinos. When gambling was approved at French Lick ten years later, the casino was designed as a riverboat surrounded by a small pond, and acquired the nickname: The Boat in the Moat. Two years later, the law changed, and the moat was filled. The boat was converted into the state’s first land based casino.
Today the resort features a 51,000 square foot smoke free gaming room with 37 table games and only 1,300 slots. Besides gambling, the French Lick resort offers hiking trails, horseback riding, and bowling. It was meant to be a vacation getaway for families - it has become USA Today’s 9th best casino.
