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Five Companies Vie for Missouri Riverboat Casino License

Posted on September 3rd, 2010

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There are only 13 licenses issued by the Gaming Commission of the state of Missouri. This auspicious number came to be in 2008, when the Gaming commission decided that the number of riverboat gaming licensed would be pegged at 13. Twelve of them currently have owners, and the thirteenth license is up for grabs as President Casino on the St. Louis Riverfront closed shop this summer. Five companies involved in gambling are joining the race to get that license, hoping the number 13 would prove lucky for them, as there seems to be no move to increase the number of licenses available since the 2008 vote. Thus, whoever gets riverboat gaming license number 13 would be lucky indeed.

A Missouri Gaming Commission spokesperson said that if the group’s commissioner’s wishes were to be followed, they should be in the stage of forging an agreement with a company to start developing the new casino before the year 2010 ends. The spokesperson, LeAnn McCarthy, added, “Commission staff will now go through the documentation to see if everything is complete, and then turn that documentation over to the commission and move forward from there.” Aside from the commission carefully inspecting each of the documents that each candidate will submit, the Department of Economic Development of Missouri, in behalf of the commission, will also be simultaneously conducting a market analysis to be done throughout the state for them to gauge whether launching a new gaming operation will be more successful or end up in failure.

Of the five companies who have declared interest in acquiring the thirteenth riverboat gambling license, only one has had proven experience in actual riverboat casino operations in the state. Isle of Capri Inc. is already an operator of three riverboat casinos in the state, and would like to add a fourth one to be located in Cape Girardeau. The other four proposals are from the following companies:

• Casino Celebration LLC , which ended up as the only company that survived the bidding wars for the area of St. Louis, after its closest competitor, Plain Joe Development, failed to send a representative to a meeting with the city council. Thus, the officials of the city of St. Louis had no choice but to throw their support to this company.
• North County Development LLC, a company that is proposing for the riverboat gaming operation to be stationed in Spanish Lake, which is a suburb of St. Louis.
• Sunway Gaming LLC, which is planning to have a riverboat casino in Sugar Creek, an area near Kansas City
• Epic Gaming LLC, another company that is planning to put up its riverboat gaming facility in Sugar Creek.

The twelve riverboat gambling facilities are currently scattered in different parts of the state, with greater Kansas City proving to be the most popular location, as it currently hosts 4 facilities. Tying with four riverboat casinos as well is the area of St. Louis/St. Charles area. The areas of St. Joseph, Boonville, LaGrange and Caruthersville have one riverboat casino facility each. . McCarthy said that as of the moment, the commissioners are already collating all the information they can get. As this would be the first time that the method of choosing the licensee if being done in this manner, McCartney claims that they are starting from scratch and no company has the advantage over the others in the commission’s process of evaluating the candidates. McCarthy adds that after the initial evaluation is through, the commission would conduct public hearings all around the state, and they would travel to the communities where the companies are planning to set up shop to get public consensus.

The process will be the something new to the members of the commission, since this will be the first time they are awarding a license. The last license that was applied for and awarded was six years ago, in 2004, which was way before the terms of the current commissioners started. After the evaluation and hearing, the commission will name the company that they will conduct a “priority investigation with. The company will then start work on the casino, after which once the structure is done and the commission approves of it, the license will be finally awarded to the company.