Vacant Indiana Casino License Draws Four Bids, But Appeal Could Delay Award
UPDATED (1 pm ET 9/23) – Includes inside information at present of Premier Gaming’s proposal to the IN Gaming Commission for a Terre Haute casino.
The Indiana Gaming Commission proclaimed on Wed that IV companies submitted bids to build a land-based casino inward Terre Haute.
Those competing to acquire the state’s 13th gambling casino are John Churchill Downs Incorporated, Full House Resorts, Hard Rock International, and Terre Haute Entertainment – a partnership that includes Premier Gaming Group. Submissions were due by 4:45 pm ET Wednesday, along with a $50,000 diligence fee.
Terre Haute is located nigh the Land of Lincoln say contrast and about an time of day westward of Indianapolis inwards Vigo County. The body politic legislative body passed an expanded gaming account deuce years agone that freed upwards 1 of the state’s gambling casino licenses and assigned it to the west central Robert Indiana county. Voters in that location overpoweringly accepted the license inwards a Nov 2019 referendum.
The direction ab initio awarded the gambling casino licence to Spectacle Jack LLC in May 2020. It was the only accompany to go for for the license, and it secured a partnership with Hard John Rock to control the casino. However, the commendation appendage was delayed because of the IGC’s investigating into the parent company, Indianapolis-based Spectacle Entertainment. That arose after commissioning officials learned Spectacle executives were fastened to a federal investigation into illegal safari contributions.
Those Spectacle executives, Rod Ratcliff and Gospel According to John Keeler, would eventually backward come out of the project. That left wing Greg Gibson, a Terre Haute businessman and Spectacle co-founder, to take that effort. Charles Dana Gibson renamed the jeopardize Lucy Luck, but the externalise stalled for to a greater extent than a year.
In June, the IGC took the unprecedented stone's throw of not renewing Lucy Luck’s license after Gibson failed to convince commissioners of his be after to relocation forward.
License Appeal Could Delay Award
After the commission voted against renewal, it requested that IGC stave military issue a young send for for licence applications. However, as the tell moved forward to find a unexampled partner, a new wrench highly-developed that could once again make a wait inward the project.
Gibson chose to charm the commission’s decision, and that showcase is currently before the commonwealth Office of Administrative Law Proceedings. Attempts to get hold of C. D. Gibson were unsuccessful Wednesday.
In a statement to Casino.org, fresh prescribed IGC Executive Director Greg Small said that patch the stay put could postponement a certify from being issued, it would non halt staff from reviewing and vetting unexampled applicants.
“We are real proud of(p) with the stratum of involvement inward the Vigo County gambling casino license and look forward to a competitory selection process,” said Small, the former general counsel for the military commission who succeeded Sara Gonso Tait as executive director earliest this month. “The piece of work to evaluate these proposals begins immediately, with the goal of setting a Commission encounter escort for functionary sue before the stop of the year… The (Lucy Luck) thing is pending before an administrative jurisprudence judge, and the IGC is hopeful that it testament be decided expeditiously.”
Full House, Hard Rock Already Established inwards Indiana
Two of the applicants already experience casinos in the state.
Las Vegas-based Full House operates the Rising Star Casino and Resort inward Rising Sun. On its quarterly account group discussion call off with stock analysts lowest month, President and CEO Dan Henry Lee revealed that the companionship had previously considered Terre Haute and was once more evaluating the opportunity.
Hard Rock, which is based inward Davie, Fla. and owned by the Seminole Tribe of Florida, was lately approved by the IGC as the absolute majority stakeholder for Hard Rock Northern Indiana. The $300 one thousand thousand externalize inward Gary is the state’s newest casino.
As noted previously, Hard John Rock was slated to operate a $150 one thousand thousand “Rocksino” for Lucy Luck, but Lucy Luck ne'er was capable to get around ground on the project. In addition, IGC officials had substantive concerns nigh Lucy Luck’s management and a want of lucidness regarding $57 gazillion in notes that would get been used toward funding the project.
Messages to both companies seeking commentary were non returned Wed evening.
Churchill Downs Reveals Plans
Churchill Downs does non operate a cassino inwards the state. However, the Louisville-based gaming companionship has a story in Indiana. It opened the firstly Equus caballus racing track in the state, Hoosier Park, inwards 1994, and the accompany currently holds a sports betting license.
The accompany best known for racing also owns or operates 10 casinos and Little Joe historical Equus caballus racing parlors.
About an 60 minutes before the applications programme deadline, the companionship released a statement detailing some of the plans for its development, dubbed the Queen of Terre Haute Resort. The gambling casino would feature 1,000 expansion slot machines, 50 tabularize games, a TwinSpires retail sportsbook, a 125-room luxuriousness hotel, and multiple dining options.
Bill Carstanjen, CEO of Winston S. Churchill Downs Incorporated, said the companion would purchase its nearly 150-year story inward gaming, amusement and hospitality to work a “world-class” attractiveness to Terre Haute.
We apprise the local encouragement we’ve received as we’ve evaluated this opportunity,” he said. “In the years ahead, we appear frontwards to making our compositor's case to the Hoosier State Gaming Commission as to why our proposal to build the Queen of Terre Haute is inward the topper interestingness of the residents and businesses of Terre Haute, Vigo County, and the say of Indiana.”
The society did non reveal how practically it planned to enthrone in the project. But John Churchill Downs cited a contemplate by Purdue University economists forecasting the casino would bring on a $190 one thousand thousand annual economical wallop and make a 2 percent annual leap inward the region’s revenue domestic help project. Construction would conduct to 1,000 job opportunities, and when the casino opens, it would employ 500 people.
Terre Haute inwards Premier’s “Wheelhouse”
Premier Gaming owns the Magnolia Bluffs Casino in Natchez, Miss. The society is based come out of Union, Ky., a suburb of Cincinnati, where Founder and President Kevin Preston resides.
Preston has nearly 30 years of see in the gaming industry. Prior to creating the keep company inwards 2009, he was the COO and a senior vice chair for Tropicana Entertainment. In that role, he was responsible for 14 properties and helped the companion emerge from bankruptcy.
In an question with Casino.org Midweek evening, Preston said the company plans to give up drawings and details of its gambling casino proposal on Thursday. He added that a community the size of Terre Haute, a metropolis of almost 58,000 people and a metropolitan population of roughly 170,000, is rightfulness inward the “wheelhouse” for Premier.
In other words, a littler companion would live a better gaming partner for a urban center ilk Terre Haute.
As the proprietor of the company, you could pickaxe upwards a speech sound and call off me,” he said. “We tin can establish facilities just ilk those bigger folks, and it’s just now non another casino for us.”
Premier’s partner inward the covering is a accompany called Terre Haute Entertainment Holdings LLC. He said it’s a New York-based accompany that’s a “lending partner” and involved with Magnolia Bluffs.
According to records useable on the IN Secretary of State’s website, the New House of York City speech fastened to Terre Haute Entertainment is the same for a company called Sculptor Washington Management. The companion has receive in the gaming manufacture as well.
In June, it announced that its Sculptor Real Estate Division provided a $565 million loan for the Sky River Casino being reinforced by the Wilton Rancheria Tribe and Boyd Gaming near Sacramento. And according to a Dec 2019 clause at Perenews.com, gaming was Sculptor Capital Management’s biggest exposure as gaming properties accounted for nearly a 5th of its tangible acres investments at that time.
UPDATE – On Thursday, Preston provided Casino.org with renderings of its proposed casino, which would include 800 expansion slot machines and 20 table games. Amenities planned for the proposed Terre Haute casino and hotel include a spa, a rule and amusement area, several restaurants, and a rooftop bar and restaurant. Plans also call walking trails and an RV park.
NEW – Premier Gaming Group has released some details around its proposed casino for Terre Haute, Ind. Renderings included.
800 slots + 20 tabular array games
Sportsbook
Hotel, spa, conv./entertain space
Rooftop bar
Multiple restaurants
Walking trail
RV park
More TBD pic.twitter.com/hQepleBCnV
— Steve Bittenbender (@CasinoOrgSteveB) September 23, 2021