South Dakota
Sports betting delivers a jackpot for Deadwood
DEADWOOD, S.D. (South Dakota News Watch) – If casino operators in Deadwood could conjure the ideal target audience for their sports betting operations, Lance Chapdelaine and his buddies from Colorado would be the proverbial jackpot.
The 25-year-old banker and several pals made the Tin Lizzie Gaming Resort their home base on a weekend in early March, driving five hours from Haxtun, Colorado, for a bachelor party in the Black Hills. They stayed in the hotel, ate and drank on property and placed bets on sporting events during their multi-day stay.
“There’s nothing better than drinking a couple beers with your friends while watching college basketball, and betting makes it more intense and fun to watch the games,” Chapdelaine said.
The small cadre of Coloradans was happy to be part of what has quickly become a lucrative new addition to the gaming scene in Deadwood, where gambling was legalized in 1989 and expanded in 2015 to allow roulette, keno and craps.
South Dakota voters approved sports betting in 2020 via a constitutional amendment.
Since its implementation in September 2021, the number of sports books has risen from two to seven. The amount wagered also has risen steadily, as have casino revenues from sports wagering. Deadwood sports books saw their “handle,” or the total amount bet, top $1 million in a month for the first time in October 2023.
With a $1,000 betting bankroll, Chapdelaine had lost money in the casino but was doing better in the sports book at Tin Lizzie. Even though sports betting is legal in Colorado, the casino scene and upbeat vibe of Deadwood lured him in for the bachelor party as well as three previous visits to the western South Dakota gaming mecca in the past two years.
“We’re small-town kids, so the environment in Deadwood is attractive to us,” Chapdelaine said as he and his friends watched college basketball at the Tin Lizzie sports book, had bratwursts for lunch and filled their glasses from a 4-foot vertical plastic tube known as the beer tower. “This is the place to be, I think.”
According to the South Dakota Department of Revenue, gamblers in Deadwood wagered $2.7 million on sports in 2021, $7.2 million in 2022 and $9 million in 2023, a 26% increase from the year prior.
While the money bet on sports in Deadwood is dwarfed by slot machine play ($1.45 billion bet in 2023) and wagering on table games ($89.7 million bet in 2023), the addition of glitzy betting areas surrounded by massive TVs showing all manner of sporting events has provided Deadwood a jolt of new energy, new clientele and new revenues.
“If success is measured by positive guest experience and robust enthusiasm, then Deadwood sports betting is a smashing success,” David Knight, vice president of operations for Liv Hospitality, which manages two Deadwood casinos, wrote to News Watch in an email. “It’s undeniable that sports betting has turned Deadwood into a more attractive destination as sports has a unique power of bringing complete strangers together to socialize, watch games and enjoy uncommon camaraderie in a vibrant and exciting atmosphere.”
The consistent growth of sports betting in Deadwood dovetails with a massive rise in sports wagering across the country, as the availability and interest in gambling on sporting events have exploded since the U.S. Supreme Court deemed sports gaming legal in 2018.
According to a report from the American Gaming Association, bettors in the U.S. gambled $120 billion on sports in 2023, a 28% jump from the year prior. Revenue for sports gambling operators also rose sharply to $10.9 billion in 2023, a nearly 45% increase over 2022. In all, 38 states and the District of Columbia have legalized sports betting, and much of that betting is done online.
In South Dakota, that increased sports betting has helped turn Deadwood’s gaming industry into a major contributor of tax money to a variety of recipients.
“Deadwood casinos contributed over $16.6 million in gaming tax revenue for historic preservation, tourism promotion, Lawrence County and its municipalities and schools, the State of South Dakota’s general fund and other governmental entities,” the Deadwood Gaming Association said in 2023.
But the rapid rise of sports wagering also has raised concerns that it can lead to gambling addiction, mental health problems or other unhealthy behaviors, especially among young men.
A 2023 Rutgers University study of gambling trends in New Jersey, the nation’s top state for sports wagering, revealed alarming data about the propensity of some bettors to become addicted to gaming.
Surveys showed that most sports bettors tended to be men under 45 and that more than 90% gambled with moderate or high frequency. The report’s findings suggest that people who bet on sports were prone to a variety of negative behaviors.
“Those who bet on either sports or horses were significantly more likely than others to use tobacco, alcohol, and/or illicit drugs, binge drink, report problems with drugs/alcohol, and engage in all types of addictive behaviors,” the report stated. “In addition, those in the three youngest age categories, ages 18 to 44, were overrepresented among high-risk problem gamblers.”
Anyone concerned about their gambling can get help over the phone by calling the South Dakota Lottery Problem Gambling Helpline at 1-888-781-HELP (888-781-4357.)
Sports betting has led to some fundamental changes in the gaming industry in Deadwood, according to Josh Thurmes, general manager at Tin Lizzie.
While the gender breakdown among casino patrons used to be slightly more female than male, sports betting has attracted more men to Deadwood casinos and evened up the gender breakdown, he said. Patrons in sports books also tend to skew a bit younger than in the casino as a whole.
But the changes run deeper than that, Thurmes said.
For example, the traditional gaming high season in Deadwood for years has followed that of the larger Black Hills tourism market, running roughly from May to September.
The incredible interest in betting on college and NFL football games has provided Deadwood with a burst of new patrons from the start of football season in September through the college football playoffs in January and onto the Super Bowl in early February, Thurmes said. The upcoming March Madness men’s college basketball tournament will also bring a burst of patrons to the sports books at a time when gaming traditionally slowed down in Deadwood, Thurmes said.
“Summer is still the peak season, but sports betting is definitely driving guests to Deadwood in non-typical peak times,” Thurmes told News Watch.
During major sporting events, the sports books are even able to charge patrons a fee to reserve a seat to watch the big games on multiple massive TV sets and monitors, and operators compensate them with free play offers in the casino, he said.
Besides attracting a new kind of gambler, sports betting also has pushed gaming action on days when casinos are traditionally slow.
“In the fall, you’ve got college football on Saturdays and the NFL on Sundays, Sunday nights, Mondays and now Thursdays,” Thurmes said. “During college bowl season, there’s a game on every night for weeks at a time.”
As a result, the Deadwood tourism weekend that traditionally ran from Friday night to Sunday morning can extend another day or two from sports wagering opportunities on Sundays and Mondays.
Furthermore, sports betting has energized food, beverage and hotel spending at casinos that house sports books, creating a space where patrons can place a bet and then spend as much as three hours watching their game of interest, Thurmes said.
“One of the big things we’ve seen is all the residual revenue that we’re getting from sports betting,” Thurmes said. “We see stronger food and beverage spending, and sports betting can carry over into slots or table game play.”
The launch of sports betting coincides with an overall increase in visitation and spending in Deadwood in the past couple years, said Amanda Kille, marketing director for the Deadwood Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau.
As Deadwood hotel occupancy and tourism spending both rose in 2023, the city also saw a roughly 2% increase in local foot traffic as estimated by cellphone monitoring company Placer.ai, Kille said.
“All those increases are tracking and reinforcing each other,” Kille told News Watch in an interview. “Sports betting is another amenity, and that’s always a great thing for Deadwood.”
Thurmes said the next advancements in Deadwood sports betting would likely be an expansion of the types of sports able to wager upon and new ways for bettors to place bets on elements of games even after the events have started.
Michael Shaw, 29, is a Rapid City resident who would visit Deadwood once a year but who now makes the 40-minute drive as many as five times a month to place bets on sporting events. He typically makes long-shot, multiple game parlays that can deliver a rare but tasty payoff of up to $1,000 on a $20 bet.
Sports betting is attractive because he’s a fan of watching sports on TV and likes the slower pace of wagering on it.
“I’ve always been a big sports guy and it’s more fun to watch the games this way,” Shaw told News Watch. “Plus, you can lose your money in roulette in 10 seconds and with this, your bet takes two hours or more to come in.”
Shaw said he would like South Dakota to approve sports betting on the internet or by phone so he doesn’t have to travel to Deadwood to place a wager. Two prior legislative attempts to expand sports betting to kiosks in licensed bars and restaurants outside Deadwood failed in recent years, said Matt Krogman, a lobbyist for the South Dakota Licensed Beverage Dealers and Gaming Association. The remote kiosks would have allowed sports betting through existing gambling operations at Deadwood casinos, Krogman said.
Sports betting kiosks in areas of East River, for example, would keep gaming and tax revenues in the state rather than allow them to go to Iowa from sports bets placed at the Grand Falls Casino and Golf Resort just east of Sioux Falls or the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Sioux City, Iowa, he said.
Shaw, meanwhile, said he’ll continue to drive to Deadwood to place his long-shot bets, even though he’d like to do so from his home or elsewhere in Rapid City.
“I get what they’re trying to do, but it would be nice to allow mobile betting outside Deadwood,” Shaw said. “It would make it a lot more convenient for people, that’s for sure.”
— This article was produced by South Dakota News Watch, a non-profit journalism organization located online at sdnewswatch.org.
Copyright 2024 KSFY. All rights reserved.
Enter your email and we’ll send a secure one-click link to sign in.
KELOLAND.com is provided by Nexstar Media Inc., and uses the My Nexstar sign-in, which works across our media network.
Learn more at nexstar.tv/privacy-policy.
KELOLAND.com is provided by Nexstar Media Inc., and uses the My Nexstar sign-in, which works across our media network.
Nexstar Media Inc. is a leading, diversified media company that produces and distributes engaging local and national news, sports, and entertainment content across its television and digital platforms. The My Nexstar sign-in works across the Nexstar network—including The CW, NewsNation, The Hill, and more. Learn more at nexstar.tv/privacy-policy.
The existing water treatment plant for the Minnehaha Community Water Corp. on June 9, 2026, south of Dell Rapids, S.D. (Photo: Bart Pfankuch / South Dakota News Watch)
DELL RAPIDS, S.D. – Scott Buss can only imagine what this town north of Sioux Falls might have looked like – and how many jobs and taxes would have been generated – if there wasn’t a local shortage of available water.
Buss, executive director of the Minnehaha Community Water Corp., sat in the conference room of the rural water system based in Dell Rapids recently and ticked off the industrial and agricultural projects turned away due to a lack of water.
After hitting its limit on how much water it can provide a few years ago, the rural system has had to turn away proposed projects valued at hundreds of millions of dollars that offered an untold number of new jobs, he said.
The rejected projects include the Agropur Cheese plant that eventually opened in Lake Norden. A few proposed hog farms and dairy expansions in northern Minnehaha County were also stalled, Buss said.
Get South Dakota news and information in a free email on weekdays. Cancel any time.
Subscribe
Other proposals, most of which never came to fruition in South Dakota, included the $1.5 billion Gevo corn-based jet fuel plant, the $5oo million Wholestone Farms hog processing plant and a data center that at some point all eyed the Dell Rapids area for development.
“All the water rights are spoken for between Dell Rapids and Sioux Falls, so there was no more water to be had in Minnehaha County,” Buss told News Watch in an interview in June. “With all the (residential) development that was coming in, we realized that our well capacity and our treatment capacity was limiting our ability to take on new high water-use customers.”
Buss and the nonprofit corporation’s board of directors aren’t waiting around to potentially miss out on more opportunities.
In a unique arrangement, the corporation is partnering with the neighboring Big Sioux Community Water System to the north on a $170 million expansion project called Shared Resources. The expansion, started three years ago, will use new wells into the Big Sioux Aquifer to generate 8 million gallons of water more per day starting this fall.
“It’s going to be a huge and great benefit for Big Sioux and Minnehaha water,” said Jodi Johanson, director of the Big Sioux system based in Egan. “This project is going to make sure that down the road we have enough water for the future.”
2 systems get stronger together
The Minnehaha water corporation is still able to bring on new residential and retail customers who consume part of the 9.2 million gallons of treated water it can provide on a daily basis.
The system was formed by a group of farmers and landowners in the 1970s but sought a reliable way of providing more and cleaner water to residents of Minnehaha County outside of Sioux Falls who relied exclusively on individual wells. The system started with about 1,200 customers but has grown to more than 5,500 now in seven cities, mostly north of the Sioux Falls metro area.
Given the limits on water from the aquifer, and balancing the water needs of consistent housing and retail growth in northern Minnehaha County, the water system had to say no to developments that request 1 million or more gallons of water per day, Buss said. A million gallons per day is equivalent to the water consumption of about 4,300 homes, he said.
Billions needed to keep South Dakota taps flowing
South Dakota water systems will increasingly turn to the Missouri River to provide water for future population, agricultural and industrial growth. But plans will require billions of dollars and decades of construction to keep taps flowing freely.
As with other rural water systems in South Dakota, the aquifers the systems rely on for their water are either running low or are legally tapped out, or both.
In the case of Minnehaha water corporation, the Big Sioux River Aquifer has gotten drier, but state law is also preventing it from taking more water from the aquifer.
In 1996, the state Water Management Board allocated water rights, or withdrawal limits, to systems that take groundwater from the aquifer, Buss said.
Those limits have now been reached, meaning that Minnehaha water cannot take any more than the 7 million gallons per day it is drawing now.
The system also receives about 2 million gallons per day from the Lewis & Clark Regional Water System, making its daily maximum capacity of about 9.2 million gallons per day, which it sometimes reaches, especially during spring planting season or hot summer months.
Directly to the north, the Big Sioux Community Water System produces up to 2 million gallons per day for about 2,400 customers in Moody and Lake counties as well as some in Brookings County and in western Minnesota, Johanson said.
The system still has room within its water rights to draw more water, making it an attractive partner for Minnehaha water.
Though Big Sioux Community Water System has not turned away any large projects, it needs more water to serve a boom in residential growth in the region, Johanson said.
In the area around Lake Madison, near Madison, developers are considering projects that could someday bring 500 new homes and a new nine-hole golf course, she said.
Support solutions-focused storytelling. Help South Dakota News Watch tell stories that identify and share solutions to the state’s biggest challenges.
Donate
The system also serves a number of dairies that use significant water and provides water to the Dakota Ethanol plant in Wentworth, which is undergoing an expansion. Farmers in the region are also using greater quantities of water to deliver chemicals onto their land, Johanson said.
“This is our first expansion,” she said. “We’re looking forward and we’re trying to find the solution before we face a problem.”
Federal government and customers pay the way
The biggest Shared Resources ticket item is a new $80 million water treatment plant that is nearly completed on 240th Street a few miles north of Dell Rapids.
A 20-inch pipeline from the plant to the east will end at a 1.5 million gallon water tower, and a 24-inch pipeline to the west will terminate at a ground-level storage tank with a 4 million gallon capacity.
Six new wells will draw the water, and the storage tanks will provide both pressure and the ability to adapt to changing demands without service interruption, Buss said.
As with most modern water projects, the costs will be shared by government and end users. The systems are funding the project with $49 million in grants from the Biden-era American Rescue Plan Act and $121 million in low-interest loans from South Dakota’s Drinking Water State Revolving Fund.
The two systems are sharing the cost of the project loans commensurate with how much water they will receive, meaning Minnehaha will pay 65% of the costs for its 5 million gallons per day while Big Sioux will kick in 35% for its 3 million gallons more per day.
Minnehaha water is assuming $87 million in new debt and Big Sioux will take on $42 million in new debt, Buss said.
The average residential consumer in both systems that uses about 7,000 gallons per month will see their bill rise to $135 a month, roughly double the cost in 2020.
“It’s a big project, and it’s a good example of how two systems can work together to have some economies of scale,” Buss said.
Ratepayers will see a significant increase in their monthly water bills. The average residential consumer in both systems that uses about 7,000 gallons per month will see their bill rise to $135 a month, roughly double the cost in 2020, Buss said.
A big project, but even more water needed
But both systems view the Shared Resources project as a temporary fix and both are looking toward proposed projects that will tap the Missouri River for more water in the future.
Buss said his system has applied for 10 million gallons more water per day from Lewis & Clark, which has two expansion efforts planned.
Minnehaha water has simultaneously applied to receive 10 million gallons per day from the proposed Dakota Mainstem Regional Water System, a potentially $10 billion project to carry Missouri River water to more than 50 communities and organizations across eastern South Dakota and parts of Minnesota and Iowa.
The dual application effort is to make sure Minnehaha water can rely on taking in more water from at least one of the two systems as they come online, Buss said.
Johanson said Big Sioux has also signed on to accept water from Dakota Mainstem, even if it takes 20 to 40 years for the water to begin flowing.
To ensure that steady supply of high-quality drinking water, four major projects are in progress to take more water from the Missouri River – including WEB Water in the northeast, Lewis & Clark and the proposed Dakota Mainstem in the southeast as well as the proposed Western Dakota Regional Water System in western South Dakota and the Black Hills.
The projects are part of a wide-scale increase in water service capacity now underway in South Dakota, where water managers of several systems are implementing plans to serve the state for the next 40 to 50 years.
Regional rural water systems such as Minnehaha and Big Sioux are critical components of those projects because they provide water to communities and individual customers at the end of the delivery system.
Alicia Deschepper, zoning administrator for Moody County, said the water system expansions should allow for more growth to occur in Moody and Minnehaha counties, which are seeing new single-family housing developed at a rapid rate.
“I think it will be a great thing for our county and hopefully enable us to bring in more bigger businesses as well as more homes,” Deschepper said.
South Dakota News Watch is an independent nonprofit. Read, donate and subscribe for free at sdnewswatch.org. Contact content director Bart Pfankuch: 605-937-9398/bart.pfankuch@sdnewswatch.org.
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (Dakota News Now) – The South Dakota Department of Public Safety said a nine-year-old girl from Waterloo, Iowa, is dead following a fatal Hughes County crash on Saturday.
This crash happened on Saturday, July 4, near the Spring Creek Recreation Area about 15 miles northwest of Pierre.
Preliminary crash information suggests a utility vehicle driven by a 37-year-old Iowa man was driving south on Spring Creek Drive. He attempted to turn around and rolled the vehicle.
A 16-year-old boy was also in the vehicle and was hurt, while the driver was not hurt.
The South Dakota Highway Patrol is investigating the crash.
Copyright 2026 Dakota News Now. All rights reserved.
-
South Dakota3 minutes agoSouth Dakota native lived near Iranian missile & drone attacks
-
Tennessee8 minutes agoThe Recipient of Taylor Swift’s Bouquet Toss Has Strong Tennessee Football, Lady Vols Basketball Ties | Rocky Top Insider
-
Texas15 minutes agoTexas Rescuers Save Woman From Sewage-Filled Ravine
-
Utah18 minutes agoFireworks ban expires as Utah weighs Pioneer Day restrictions
-
Vermont23 minutes agoAuthorities ID girl who died in Vt. river, older brother who died trying to save her
-
Virginia30 minutes agoHow Virginia became the world’s data center capital and how it’s going – WTOP News
-
Washington33 minutes ago
Question of the week: What does Santana Moss think of Washington’s WR depth?
-
Wisconsin38 minutes agoWisconsin Supreme Court puts ICE detainers suit on hold pending appeal
