Pinnacle Entertainment and Missouri Gambling Regulators Finalizes Deal Regarding President Casino

The legal face-off between Pinnacle Entertainment and gambling regulators in the state of Missouri over the President Casino is now close.

After months of wrangling, both parties agreed to an agreement on March 11th, 2010 that would shutdown the President Casino forever. Gambling regulators voted to begin proceedings to close the gaming facility this summer.

Pinnacle Entertainment filed a legal challenge against the matter, hoping to gain the power to keep the facility open. However, before the issue could be heard in court, cooler heads prevailed. For Pinnacle Entertainment, the whole situation became simple as the days went by. They no longer wanted to fight the gaming commission that has to oversee to other Pinnacle gaming properties in Missouri.

Pinnacle Entertainment owns the River City Casino and Lumiere Place. For gaming regulators, they had to stop their disciplinary measures that they plan to take against Pinnacle. The agreement, now complete, has both groups ready to move.

For Pinnacle, that means focusing their attention on their other properties in the state and for gaming regulators, it means a new gaming license has opened up. One of the main reasons that Pinnacle Entertainment did not want to close down the President Casino was because of the value of the gaming license.

Only 13 gaming licenses are available in Missouri. However, Pinnacle has now given up the license, although the group claims that it may once again pursue the gaming license when it comes up for bidding. Before that happens, studies will need to be done on where is the best location for a new casino facility in Missouri would be.

The social effects will need to be examined as well as what location in the state will provide the best financial climate for a casino facility to succeed.

17 March 2010
News Submitted by:
Jessica Kellerman

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