Indiana has opened a path for a commercial casino in Fort Wayne or possibly elsewhere in the state’s northeast corner, but Full House Resorts is already warning that the political setup may be harder to clear than the legislation itself. The concern is not whether lawmakers created a legal route, but whether voters in three separate counties will approve it first.
House Bill 1038, signed by Gov. Mike Braun in early March, requires Allen, DeKalb, and Steuben counties to place a casino question on the 2026 general election ballot. Only after that process can the Indiana Gaming Commission move ahead with selecting a winning applicant for a new inland casino license in one of the three counties.
Three local votes now stand between the law and any Fort Wayne-area casino project
That referendum structure is where Full House sees the risk. On its March 5 earnings call, CEO Dan Lee said the revised bill leaves developers facing three separate county campaigns in which the opposition may be better organized and better funded than supporters of any single project. He said that setup could make what are usually manageable local casino votes much tougher to win this time.
Braun’s stance helped create that hurdle. He said he would not have signed the bill without a referendum requirement, turning public approval into a condition for the project to move forward at all. That means even a bill that survived the General Assembly still has to clear another political test before the market gets to a normal licensing contest.
The final bill created a new license, but it also raised the cost of entry sharply
The economics also changed before the session ended. The enrolled version of HB 1038 authorizes a new license rather than a straight relocation, requires at least a $500 million investment, and sets a $150 million license payment. Of that total, $100 million would go to the state General Fund and $50 million to the Shuttered Riverboat Fund.
Those terms matter for Full House because the company had backed earlier versions tied more directly to moving its Rising Star license from southeastern Indiana. Under the final structure, Rising Star can stay open, but any northeast Indiana project now comes with a larger upfront capital commitment and a more complicated political path.
Final decisions will be made after the ballots have been counted
The commercial logic for a northeast casino is still there. A 2025 Spectrum study for the Indiana Gaming Commission estimated that a northeast Indiana casino could generate about $61.1 million a year in gaming taxes, though it also found downtown Indianapolis would be the richer option at about $170.7 million.
For now, though, Indiana’s next casino debate is no longer mainly about market potential. It is about whether at least one county says yes in November, and whether developers still like the opportunity once the campaign fight and price tag are fully in view.
