As reported by: The Associated Press
Once again, talk is circulating among lawmakers in Juneau to bring a large casino to Anchorage.

Poker champ and furrier Perry Green is getting credit for the idea, according to the Anchorage Daily News. He wants the casino installed at the site of the former Alaska Seafood International plant. Green estimates it would raise $15 million for state government.

Green, reached by phone in Mississippi, where he was attending a poker tournament, said last week, "The state can take a white elephant building and put it to a use that makes sense."

Key legislators are listening.

"The casino that Perry Green is talking about is something I'm interested in," said House Speaker Pete Kott, an Eagle River Republican.

Anchorage Republican Rep. Mike Hawker also sees potential. Hawker is chairman of a House committee charged with finding new dollars to help run the state. Hawker said he expects the casino plan will be a topic of serious discussion this legislative session.

"It's an intriguing proposition," Hawker said.

Fairbanks Republican Sen. Gary Wilken, co-chair of the Senate Finance Committee, was cooler to the idea.

"For some reason, the idea of a glitzy casino in the middle of Anchorage doesn't seem to fit my vision of Alaska," he said.

Others were outright opposed.

"It really seems like a stupid thing to me," said Anchorage Democratic Rep. Harry Crawford, an opponent of expanded gambling in Alaska. "The building is designed for manufacturing."

When Green finishes playing cards in Mississippi, he will head to California later this month to study casino operations.

"They're giving me access, I'm seeing what's happening," he said.

Green's proposal is to give the state 17 percent of the casino profits. Anchorage would get another 3 percent, plus property taxes.

Green would need to persuade the state to sell him the building, and he would have to get the Legislature to change state law to make a casino legal. Hawker said the idea would not be to make casinos legal everywhere in Alaska, just to allow a single one at the fish plant.

The $50 million, 202,000-square-foot plant was built with state money in the 1990s. The state leased the facility to Alaska Seafood International, which planned to turn raw fish into seasoned, heat-and-eat entrees for sales around the globe.

But the fish plant had financial and management problems from the beginning. It called it quits at the end of September. The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, a state agency, is the landlord. The AIDEA board is scheduled to meet on Jan. 26 in Anchorage to talk about how to find a new use for the building.