I live in Charlotte, NC and according to mapquest the closest
frontons would be Hamilton and Ocala each at about 460 miles which
would be about 7 hours driving. Fortunately I have family in South
FL and get my jai-alai fix when I visit a few times a year and
they are 5 minutes from Dania.
This market is a really interesting one when it comes to gambling.
I live on the south side of Charlotte, just a few minutes from
the South Carolina state line. It is anti-gambling country, with
no places close by to gamble. There is an indian casino at the
Cherokee reservation in the NC mountains, but it is 3 hours away
and offers only video slots and no alcohol is allowed on the property.
Still, they do a great business and are one of the most profitable
Harrah's properties. Other than that all you have is 2 casino
boats at Myrtle Beach, but there you have a 3+ hour drive then
the hour boat ride before you can gamble. North Carolina just
barely passed a lottery which started last month. Only scratch
off games for now with Powerball to come. It was front page news
for an entire week when it launched. The interesting twist here
is that up until a few years ago video poker was legal in South
Carolina. Any business could have up to 3 machines, and many "mini-casinos"
were prevalent where they'd have multiple rooms with 3 machines
each to skirt the law. The most successful ones were on the NC
state line, especially near Charlotte which is by far the biggest
border city. I know of more than one former owners of these places
who became millionares in a very short time from operating these
video poker parlors. The anti-gambling forces got it banned though.
So now we have all these local gamblers with no place to wager
on anything. The Cherokee casino seems like a total rip off with
very low payouts, but since they are the only game in town so
to speak they rake it in. There is a candidate for governor in
South Carolina who is running based on a platform of "full
expanded gambling" for the state but he probably stands little
chance of winning. We also have the Catawba indians in SC right
now fighting to get an "electronic bingo" facility approved(a
la Hard Rock in FL) and I'm sure they will do very well if it
happens. Plus, even though USAirways is based here, there are
no direct flights to Atlantic City or Biloxi. Only a few to Memphis,
then you have almost an hour to get to Tunica, MS. And of course
Vegas is a long flight and not something you want to do for a
short weekend trip. There are many casino travel companies who
do very well here arranging charters for their customers to casino
resorts.
So.....if there are any wealthy entrepreneurs who check this site
- if the laws change then this area could be ripe for a new fronton!
A place like Hamilton here would do very well, and I'm sure would
be drawing much bigger crowds. If this happens and you need a
GM for the new fronton then count me in. After all "Carolina
Jai-Alai" does have a nice ring to it..............
