My dad tells me that in his youth, there were casino boats that would dock in Cleveland Once the boat hit Canadian waters, the boat would open up all of the slots and tables where people could gamble. Dad seems to think this would be a gold mine since the neighboring states are chock full of Ohio residents.
I am wondering if this would even be possible to do this today? Is there anything from stopping a casino operator to park a boat in a state that doesn’t allow gambling and sail it to a jurisdiction where it is allowed? I doubt you could go from state to state since there are all kinds of licensing requirements. But I don’t think the Canadians have a problem licensing a boat to come over to pick up gamblers.
There are casino boats on the East Coast that do just that, but they’ve been losing business to the Indian casinos that don’t involve weather and seasickness, only bus rides.
Your scheme might work if you could get a Canadian (or maybe just Ontario?) gaming license, since there is no international water to go to, but that doesn’t seem easy to do. Maybe that wasn’t an issue in the olden days, or the Mounties/OPP just didn’t bother them?
The international ferries sailing around Northern Europe have corridors lined with slot machines that are turned off when in port, but turned on again as soon as legally possible. But for that and tax-free sales of alcohol and cigarettes, the ferry lines would have to charge substantially more and probably couldn’t keep daily schedules going for most of the year.
As ElvisL1ves points out, the fundamentally different factor with Lake Erie is that there are no 12 mile limit waters; the whole lake belongs to either the US or Canada.
And, unlike the pre-2001 days, you don’t just go out in that lake now and sail back and forth across the international line willy-nilly. Sad, too; used to be fun boating across to Pelee Point.