Dodge City casino, Boot Hill, opens in town that inspired ‘Gunsmoke’; revenues to go to state

Dodge City casino opens; revenues to go to state

DODGE CITY, Kan. — A casino has opened in Dodge City, reviving memories of the once- raucous cowtown that inspired television’s “Gunsmoke.”

Revenues from the new Boot Hill Casino and Resort will go to the state.

The casino complex opened with 20,000 square feet of gambling space, 584 slot machines and 12 tables for blackjack, poker, craps and roulette, along with a bar, a restaurant and a snack bar. The second phase, to be completed by 2012, includes a 124-room hotel.

Dodge City seemed a natural site for a casino to some local officials and legislators, given its history as a wicked western town in the 1870s and 1880s and a place where famed lawman Wyatt Earp also was a dealer for a card game called faro. The city once had 18 or 19 saloons — including the famous Long Branch — and most had gambling, said Jeff Thorpe, the president of a local group that lobbied for the casino law.

The wild times led to a backlash, as Dodge City residents sought a more sedate community, and the gambling disappeared. Eventually, the cowtown of the past lived on only in “Gunsmoke,” which originally aired from the 1950s to the 1970s.

Boot Hill is the first complex built under a 2007 state law authorizing one casino in each of four areas to generate revenue for the state. A private developer built the casino and will manage it, but the state lottery owns the rights to the gambling and the gambling equipment, down to the cards and dice. Kansas is the only state with such an arrangement, according to the American Gaming Association.