Casino may eye expansion into Moses Lake

Project 'just in talking stage at this point'

A Spokane businessman is betting that there's a place for a casino off of Interstate 90, and it might be in Moses Lake.

"It's just in the talking stage at this point," said Larry Ringgenberg, president of Northwest Gaming, Inc. "It's not a done deal. To do a project like this takes $16 to $18 million dollars, to build the facility that I would like to see built."

Ringgenberg said he is in the process of opening a place in Spokane, named Ringo's Little Vegas. He said he will finish the restaurant portion of that project in July, and the casino portion in September. Once completed, Ringgenberg wants to expand and build a Ringo's II.

Ringgenberg said that groups and outside investors are eying Washington because of Tim Eyman's Initiative 892, which promises to decrease homeowner taxes by allowing the same number of slot machines in every private gambling establishment as are allowed in tribal casinos.

"For every $100 that's made on a slot machine, the owner keeps $65 and $35 goes to the state for taxes," he said. "Of that $35, 99 percent goes to the homeowners in the state of Washington. One percent goes to the gaming commission for handling this."

Ringgenberg said he would be buying the property before a vote on the initiative.

"It's a double play the way it is, but it's a home run if it passes," he said.

Those groups are looking for places that are accessible to people, Ringgenberg said.

Ringgenberg was circulation director of the Columbia Basin Herald in the 1970s.

"So I'm acquainted with Moses Lake," he said. "(It's) probably one of the friendliest communities that I've ever lived in."

There are other locations that Ringgenberg is looking at as well, he said.

Ringgenberg said that he is not interested in competing with the casinos already operating in town, but wants to build an interstate truck stop casino.

"When you leave the Idaho border, (or) leave Spokane and go to Seattle, if you're a truck driver or a vacationer, there's no major stop until you get all the way to Seattle, and I want to have a stopping point halfway in Moses Lake," Ringgenberg said.

He said that building the complex he wants in Moses Lake would be an approximately $16 million project, and would employ approximately 150 employees, 75 to 80 percent of which would be local, and 20 percent would be experienced dealers to personally train the other 80 percent.

"In order to do that, I need financial backing other than the investors I have," he said.

The people Ringgenberg is working with own a small motel chain in Arizona, and were about to start a new project. He said that they stopped that project until they could come to Moses Lake and take a look, and see if they like the idea of putting a motel and a casino together. If so, they would become Ringgenberg's landlords, because he would lease the casino from them, he said.

Ringgenberg said he has been to Moses Lake several times in the last month and a half, and reiterated that he is trying to bring in new customers rather than coming in and competing with those already present in town.

"All I'm going to do is treat people like casino people are treated all over the United States," he said. "The casino would be my revenue (and) the restaurant would be my attraction."

Ringgenberg also said that he would provide showers for truckers in the facility, so that they would have a place to clean up.

"Any exit off the interstate would suffice as long as I'm close enough where employees can drive 15, 20 miles to come to work," he said.

Ringgenberg said that he is the casino person on the project, and he has investors with the group that are with the motel business. Ringgenberg said he suggested to the investors that they follow the example of an Indian reservation that built a casino right on an interstate near Albuquerque, N.M., and enlarged their parking lot for truckers.

"Today they are a very prosperous casino with no population," he said. "It just sits all by itself. That's what I could do on I-90, because once you leave Spokane and you go to Seattle, whether you be a trucker or a tourist, there is no major stop except for Moses Lake."

Moses Lake has more shopping opportunities than neighboring towns and there are no competing Indian reservations, he said.

Ringgenberg said he asked former Herald publisher and Tomlinson Black Ranch and Home realtor Lyle Hicks to look at some of the available property because he knew Hicks, although Hicks did not recognize his name at first.

Hicks said he did not know much about the project, but said that he thought the concept is good.

"If you go north of the interstate, unless you can teach rattlesnakes and grizzly bears how to play poker or slot machines, there isn't a lot of population out there," Ringgenberg said. "But you do have numerous population on I-90, and this is people that keep right on going by Moses Lake. If we would decide on Moses Lake, it would definitely enhance people to stop, come to have a place to rest during the night, have a great facility to go to and they'll also go to the grocery stores and clothing stores in the morning when they get up."

Ringgenberg compared his casino idea to Hoopfest in Spokane, and said that that program drew in $20 million extra to Spokane because of the amount of new people that came in. That would happen if a facility could be built in Moses Lake he said.

"But in order to put up a huge facility like this, you have to turn around and meet all the city requirements," he said. "The location that you go to, they have to want you to come. When I say 60 days, in 60 days I will have worked out all the bugs. My investors need to be convinced that this is something they want to spend their money on, instead of spending it back in Arizona."