The Indiana Gaming Commission said the state’s online and retail sports wagering operations could accept bets on alpine skiing, bobsled, cross-country skiing, curling, ice hockey, short-track speed skating and speed skating.
Troubled Indianapolis-based casino company Spectacle Entertainment was at the center of multiple controversies in 2021, from its top executive being forced out to losing stakes in two new casino projects.
One of the companies that was pass over for the license, Las Vegas-based Full House Resorts, has sued the Indiana Gaming Commission, claiming it didn’t follow state law when it picked Churchill Downs to develop the casino.
Louisville-based Churchill Downs proposed a $240 million project known as the Queen of Terre Haute, to be built on nearly 21 acres west of the Haute City Shopping Mall.
The company plans a 38,000-square-foot expansion at Hoosier Park that will result in 100 more slot machines, along with restaurant and bar space and a new drive-through area for valet parking.
The Indiana Gaming Commission has started reviewing applications from four companies for the casino license that were submitted in September.
John Keeler was indicted this week by a federal grand jury on two new charges related to illegally using campaign donations to lower the taxable income for Centaur Holdings, parent of the casino company where Keeler was vice president and general counsel.
Gaming Commission executive director Greg Small said the agency hoped to select a company for the Terre Haute license by the end of this year.
Sara Gonso Tait’s six-year tenure has been marked by several major rulings involving casinos and fines imposed against their operators.
Hard Rock International is assuming at least 85% ownership of a northwestern Indiana casino from an Indianapolis-based ownership group whose top executives have faced criminal and financial misconduct allegations.
Only four states, Nevada, Mississippi, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, took in more gambling revenue than Indiana during the first half of the year.
The Indiana Gaming Commission voted Thursday not to renew Lucy Luck’s license for a planned casino in Terre Haute after it failed to complete financing for the project.
The casino’s groundbreaking could happen in late June or early July, with an opening by fall 2022, Hard Rock International executive Jon Lucas told the Indiana Gaming Commission on Tuesday.
The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is expecting state regulators to approve its ownership of the casino later this year.
The Hard Rock Casino Northern Indiana’s opening was snarled by a state investigation into allegations of financial wrongdoings by the casino developer’s former top executive.
The Indiana Gaming Commission filed a response Thursday in Marion Superior Court to a lawsuit filed last month by seven investors in Spectacle Entertainment, the parent company of two casinos in Gary and a casino under construction in Terre Haute.
Casino giant Caesars Entertainment Inc., which operates multiple properties in Indiana, is suing a long list of insurance carriers it accuses of balking at paying its business interruption costs.
The 53-day lag between when the commission ordered Spectacle to remove Rod Ratcliff from his role as an owner to when the company complied was unacceptable, according to Gaming Commission Executive Director Sara Gonso Tait.
The 25,000-square-foot expansion to the Shelbyville casino will provide space for more slot machines and additional gaming tables, plus upgrade its poker facilities.
Rod Ratcliff, the former chief executive for Centaur Gaming and Spectacle Entertainment, reached a settlement agreement with the Indiana Gaming Commission that requires him to sell his remaining casino ownership shares.
