Bally’s is proposing up to $100,000 in gambling credit to retain high rollers in Rhode Island. This measure is backed by Senate President Dominick Ruggerio. This bill would double the gambling-on-credit limit to six figures at Rhode Island’s two Bally’s-run state casinos in Lincoln and Tiverton.

The $100,000 gambling credit would only be available to limited gamblers at Bally’s brick-and-mortar casino

The increased limit would only be available to residents gambling at the brick-and-mortar casino in person. It would not be available to those gambling via the iGaming app. There’s also one more catch.

“Obviously we’re not interested in extending lines of credit to those individuals who would not be able to pay it back,” Bally’s representative Elizabeth Suever told the Senate Committee on Special Legislation last week on the bill that was first introduced May 2.

According to the Providence Journal, taxpayers have a stake because state-sponsored gambling is the state’s third largest source of revenue. An estimated $428.8 million in gambling revenue could be headed to the state treasury this year.

Furthermore, Ruggerio sponsored the proposal this late in the session because “the bill was introduced at the request of Bally’s to keep them on par with competition from casinos in Massachusetts,” a spokesperson for Ruggerio said.

Suever wants to ensure that Bally’s can hold its own against other New England casinos.

“We want to make sure that, as the operator of the two casinos for the State of Rhode Island, we’re doing everything that we can to be regionally competitive. By that, I mean competitive with those casinos that are in Connecticut, which are some of the largest casinos in the United States, and [those in] Massachusetts,” Suever added.

Massachusetts offers more gambling credit than Rhode Island

Although Bally’s still has high gambling-on-credit limits, Suever said players have been informing her that they can’t get the same level of credit in Rhode Island that they can in Massachusetts.

For that reason, extending the limit from $50,000 currently to $100,000 would be “an amenity for our players that play very high limits because they don’t want to be carrying that amount of cash on their person as they’re coming and going from the casino.”

The new limit would be for a “limited amount of players,” per Providence Journal.

A hearing has been scheduled for Thursday on the matching House version of the bill. That version is requesting to allow the state’s Department of Business Regulation the ability to change the terms in the latest version of the state’s current operating agreement with Bally’s without having to ask for legislative approval.

It is unknown on how many Rhode Island gamblers now carry a $50,000 credit limit.