Pinnacle Entertainment Withdraws Its Casino Plan from Wyandotte County

Posted on September 18, 2008 - Filed Under Casino Articles, Casino games, Casino tournaments, Gambling News

Pinnacle Entertainment has withdrawn its plan of opening a state-owned casino in the Wyandotte County, Kansas. It was quite a big shock to the people from the casino industry. They have retreated back owing to the current tumult in the finance market.

Pinnacle Entertainment has said that the company is thinking of using its resources on the ongoing projects and developmental works in Missouri and Louisiana. This Las Vegas based firm sent a mail to its lawyer at Kansas City disclosing about its plan to draw back from the project.

Pinnacle Entertainment was one of the four competitors who were supposed to open a casino in the Wyandotte County. The other three were the Connecticut-based Mohegan tribe and its Kansas City-based partner Red Development, Las Vegas-based Golden Gaming, and 50-50 partnership of Kansas Speedway and the Cordish Co.

About a total of nine casinos are owned by Pinnacle Entertainment throughout the world. One of them is still under construction, which is known as the Lumiere Place, located in St. Louis and River City. Pinnacle offered for a $623.6 million casino resort and also a 500-room hotel in the Wyandotte County.It was said by Pinnacle that casino will be connected by boardwalks and waterways with the Schlitterbahn Vacation Village water theme park and resort. The officials of the Texas-based Schlitterbahn told that they were not aware of the news till the time Pinnacle informed them about their decision.

The Kansas Lottery Gaming Facilities Review Board was about to declare the name of the winner in Topeka soon but this sudden retreat has left everyone from the gambling industry very surprised. The winner would have got a 15 year casino management contract in this Kansas County.

Ed Van Petten, director of Kansas Lottery said that they have not been able to speak to Pinnacle about this sudden change in their decision. The mail sent by Pinnacle has got the signature of lawyer John D. Petersen. They retreated in order to get the $25 million privilege fee of state gambling refunded.

Spokesman Mike Taylor has said that there was no notice sent to the Unified Government of Wyandotte County in advance from Pinnacle about their withdrawal decision. District spokesman David A. Smith is quite disappointed with their act.

Pinnacle is the fourth one to withdraw its casino project after MGM Mirage who withdrew from Wichita market bidding, Las Vegas Sands Corp. who withdrew from Wyandotte County and Penn National Gaming that retreated from Cherokee County of southeast Kansas.