Feature Report - The Indiana Gaming Commission Investigates Discrimination

The Indiana Gaming Commission is working on a study to determine whether casinos in the state are discriminating against businesses owned by minorities and women. The study is looking at the purchases made by casinos - whether for food, construction work, pest control, professional consulting, landscaping or any of the other myriad goods and services they need to function - and who owns the businesses that provide those goods and services. There are 13 casinos in Indiana, including two within about seventy miles of Bloomington: the French Lick Resort Casino, in French Lick, and the Indiana Live! Casino, in Shelbyville. And there are dozens of Bloomington-based businesses registered to do work for the industry, which spends about $400 million a year, according to the Gaming Commission. The Commission has already determined that from 2009 to 2011, casinos patronized minority-owned businesses just 14.4 percent of the time, and women-owned businesses just 11.4 percent of the time. But in order to determine whether those low numbers are due to a lack of businesses owned by those groups, the Commission is trying to get a count of businesses ready and willing to sell to casinos. The business done with casinos, and the study of whether there is racial or gender disparity in who benefits from that business, is the subject of today's WFHB feature exclusive. WFHB Assistant News Director Joe Crawford speaks with the Commission’s communications director, Jennifer Reske.