This Thursday, Iowa will take another step toward potentially building its 20th casino.
The Iowa Racing & Gaming Commission will hear from vendors it will choose from to perform a market study on how a casino in Cedar Rapids, Iowa’s second-largest city, would impact the state and local region.
And this is a critical step. Both previous attempts to build a Cedar Rapids casino, in 2014 and 2017, fell apart after market studies predicted significant negative impact on surrounding casinos in Waterloo, Riverside, and Davenport.
But backers of the 2024 attempt hope this year’s study echoes a 2021 study that predicted a Cedar Rapids casino would increase statewide gambling revenue by $51 million.
