One Big, Bad Spectacle: Complete History Of Indiana’s Hard Rock Casinos

Two new Indiana Hard Rock Casino projects are currently under construction.

With one in Gary, Indiana and one in Terre Haute, Hard Rock is aiming to become a staple of the Indiana gaming industry.

Gary’s Hard Rock will replace the aging Majestic Star riverboats. Terre Haute’s Hard Rock will be the first-ever casino in the area.

But despite the flashy business plans and pent-up excitement, the new “Rocksinos” spent a lot of time under the gaming commission’s microscope.

That’s because Spectacle Entertainment, the company behind the projects, has found itself mixed up with some federal investigations.

Spectacle owns the Majestic Stars and is running the show for Gary’s new Rocksino. The company also has ties to Terre Haute’s project.

The Indiana Gaming Commission (IGC) almost pulled Spectacle’s operating license, which would have caused some major problems for the Gary property.

The situation is finally over after months of lawsuits, scandals and sales.

Since Gary’s Hard Rock will be ready to open in a few months, now’s a good time to take a look at how Spectacle ended up in that situation.

Just scroll to the bottom if you want to start from the very beginning.

March 2021: Spectacle debacle finally ends

After months of uncertainty, it looks like the Spectacle situation is finally over.

Ratcliff has settled his lawsuit with the IGC, bringing everything to a close after months of controversy.

As expected, Greg Gibson ended up buying Ratcliff’s stake in Spectacle Entertainment.

Since Gibson also owns Lucy Luck Gaming, the company handling Terre Haute’s new casino, he now has a hand in both new Hard Rock Properties in Indiana.

The Rocksino might be out of the woods, but the IGC is still investigating a handful of former Spectacle executives.

Even if the commission finds further problems with those executives, they shouldn’t change the situation in Gary.

With the lawsuit settled and Spectacle under new ownership, the debacle is finally over. The Hard Rock Casino is on track to open this spring without any further delays.

February 2021: Spectacle Jack becomes Lucy Luck

Spectacle Jack’s new owner Greg Gibson has changed the company’s name to Lucy Luck Gaming.

The former Spectacle Entertainment subsidiary will be running the show at the new Rocksino in Terre Haute.

The name change will remove any confusion between Lucy Luck and Spectacle Entertainment going forward. After all, no company wants to share a similar name to a brand that’s been engulfed in controversy for the last year.

Gibson is hoping to announce a groundbreaking date soon for construction on the new Hard Rock property.

February 2021: Gary Hard Rock sits empty

The IGC is taking a swing at permanently revoking Ratcliff’s gaming license.

The commission temporarily revoked it back in December, but wanted to leave a window open for further action based on what its investigation uncovered.

That investigation alleges that Ratcliff repeatedly funneled money from Centaur Gaming into his own personal gambling account, among other offenses.

The information led to the IGC filing a petition to permanently revoke Ratcliff’s license.

Although things are making progress, the IGC is running out of time before things get even uglier. The commission has been up against the clock because of Gary’s new Hard Rock casino.

That “Rocksino” is set to open in a few months, but the Ratcliff situation could delay things indefinitely. The new building will eventually replace the Majestic Star riverboats.

The IGC has told Spectacle to be prepared to keep the Majestic Stars up and running until at least June. That would mean months of the brand new Hard Rock sitting empty and unused.

It’s a situation that no one wanted, but at least the Majestic Stars staying open would keep employees working and give Gary residents gambling options in the meantime.

January 2021: Ratcliff sues IGC

The gaming commission might be forcing out Rod Ratcliff, but he isn’t going quietly.

The former Spectacle Entertainment CEO is suing the IGC in reaction to the commission forcing him to sell his shares of the company.

A spokesperson for Ratcliff said that the IGC’s decision was an unnecessary one.

“By operating outside of its legal scope and unfairly judging Mr. Ratcliff as guilty by association, the Indiana Gaming Commission has created a problem where none existed and delayed what will be a significant contributor to the Lake County economy.”

With yet another wrinkle developing, it could be a long time before the dust finally settles for the Spectacle situation.

January 2021: IGC Investigation ongoing

Ratcliff may be out of the picture, but he isn’t the only Spectacle executive under the microscope.

According to Gov. Holcomb, the IGC is still in the process of investigating 10 other executives at the company. Depending on what the commission finds, that investigation could still further shake up the company’s Indiana future.

There’s no way to know what will happen until the IGC announces more details, but at least for now, Spectacle isn’t quite out of the woods yet.

December 2020: Spectacle survives for now

The IGC held an emergency meeting on Dec. 23 to announce the first batch of results from its Spectacle Entertainment investigation.

In short, former Spectacle CEO Rod Ratcliff is being forced out. The IGC has issued a 90-day emergency suspension of his gaming license.

Ratcliff stepped down from his position at Spectacle earlier this year, but still owns a large portion of the company. He now has until Jan. 8 to divest his ownership interest to a trustee that’s independent from the company.

Whoever takes up his ownership shares will need approval from the IGC to do so.

Spectacle will survive the debacle for now, but Ratcliff will be out of the picture. The IGC doesn’t want him having any influence over the company.

This whole situation has left Hard Rock understandably frustrated with its partner.

The commission considered forcibly transferring Ratcliff’s control of Majestic Star Casino to a trustee-in-waiting who would operate the Gary casino “in the best interests of the state.”

That move would have triggered a default in the Hard Rock Casino’s funding, so the commission ultimately decided against it.

In anticipation of this situation, Hard Rock tried to wipe its hands of Ratcliff early.

The company wanted to buy out Ratcliff’s shares of Spectacle, but he wasn’t willing to sell. Now that the IGC is forcing his hand, Hard Rock might have more success the second time around.

If Hard Rock isn’t able to complete the purchase, Greg Gibson could be another possible buyer. Gibson purchased Spectacle Jack earlier this year to get Terre Haute’s Hard Rock Casino out of the weeds, and might do the same for Gary’s “Rocksino” project.

Gary’s Hard Rock Casino will eventually replace Majestic Star when it opens in spring 2021.

November 2020: IGC Investigation Nears Completion

At the IGC’s Nov. 23 meeting, the commission announced that the Spectacle investigation is nearing its end.

After months of interviews and legwork, the IGC believes that most of Spectacle has acted in good faith.

However, not everyone is off the hook.

According to IGC Executive Director Sara Tait, the commission has identified around 10 individuals who “have engaged in activities that are contrary to our regulations as well as the Riverboat Gambling Act.”

So the question is: what does this mean for Spectacle Entertainment and its casino license?

The IGC is waiting on Spectacle to send over a plan for remedying the situation. It was hoping to have that plan in time for the Nov. 23 meeting, but as of that afternoon, Spectacle hadn’t sent anything over.

The commission set a 30-day deadline for Spectacle to send the plan over.

If the company doesn’t deliver a satisfactory plan within 30 days, the IGC will call an emergency meeting and decide Spectacle’s fate on its own.

Commissioner Susan Williams voiced her concerns about Spectacle taking its time to develop a plan.

“I would say within the next 30 days, two weeks to 30 days, we need to have something in our hands that gives us some level of comfort that this operator is either going to be with us or going to be gone.”

In other words, we’ll finally have an end to the Spectacle situation within a few weeks. Regardless of how the final decision plays out, we’ll know Spectacle’s fate before Christmas.

September 2020: John Keeler indicted

Spectacle Entertainment might have freed up Terre Haute’s Hard Rock project, but it was still under investigation from the IGC and the FBI because of the Charles O’Neil situation.

As long as that investigation was ongoing, Spectacle was always right on the edge of having some major problem potentially develop with its Gary Hard Rock project.

That investigation finally started making some progress in September, and now Spectacle is back in hot water.

An FBI raid into Spectacle Executive John Keeler’s home uncovered some connections between Keeler and the money funneling situation.

That led to a federal indictment for Keeler, alleging that just like Charles O’Neil, Keeler had also illegally contributed money to Brent Waltz’s political campaign.

Now Spectacle Entertainment is in some big trouble.

The IGC immediately pulled Keeler’s license, and might end up doing the same to Spectacle Entertainment as a whole.

There’s no subsidiary company to sell off in order to appease the gaming commission this time, so things won’t resolve as smoothly as Terre Haute’s situation.

If the IGC pulls Spectacle’s license, the Majestic Star Casinos will have to shut down, since there will be no one to operate them.

That would be the worst case scenario for the company.

Since Gary’s new Hard Rock is opening in a few months, if the situation isn’t resolved by then, there’s going to be a brand new casino sitting around with no one to run it.

Things could get messy, but there’s no way to know what will happen until the IGC makes a final decision.

June 2020: Thieves target Gary, Indiana Hard Rock Casino

COVID-19 flipped the gaming world on its head back in March.

Spectacle Entertainment temporarily hit the pause button on the Hard Rock’s construction in Gary because of the pandemic.

With the construction equipment locked away in containers, there wasn’t much happening at the build site for a while.

Unfortunately, a group of thieves took notice of the empty construction site.

The thieves broke into the containers and stole about $25,000 worth of equipment.

Since the health crisis had stopped the construction work, no one even noticed that the equipment was missing until work resumed weeks later.

By then, the equipment was long-gone and construction couldn’t resume until it was replaced.

So between the COVID-related delays and the missing equipment, things were running behind schedule.

Gary’s Hard Rock was no longer going to be ready by New Year’s Eve, and now plans to open sometime in early 2021.

May 2020: Spectacle Jack snags casino license

The investigation into Spectacle Entertainment was underway, but it was going to take some time.

The IGC doesn’t have the resources to launch a full investigation into breaches of federal law, so the commission was mainly relying on what the Federal Government could uncover about the situation.

The IGC just wasn’t going to grant Spectacle Jack a new casino license while its parent company was under investigation, so things were at a stand still.

With no indication of how long all of this was going to take, Spectacle Entertainment decided to make some moves.

The company decided to offer the IGC an olive branch in order to unfreeze Terre Haute’s Hard Rock project.

First, it removed a pair of its officials that were linked to O’Neil’s money funneling court case.

Next, Spectacle Entertainment sold off Spectacle Jack to Terre Haute businessman Greg Gibson.

After the company changed hands, it no longer had ties to the investigation into Spectacle Entertainment, so things could finally move forward.

The IGC awarded Spectacle Jack’s new owner with the Terre Haute casino license, and the project finally got back on track.

January 2020: Charles O’Neil pleads guilty

Buckle up, because this is where things start to get messy.

Less than two weeks after ground broke on Gary’s Hard Rock, a certain court case in Virginia started causing trouble for the Terre Haute project.

In that case, a man named Charles O’Neil pleaded guilty to funneling money from Centaur Gaming into Brent Waltz’s political campaign. Waltz ran unsuccessfully for election in Indiana’s 9th Congressional District back in 2016.

So what does this have to do with Terre Haute’s Rocksino?

At the time, some of the executives involved with Centaur Gaming’s money funneling were running the show at Spectacle Entertainment. Spectacle Entertainment owned Spectacle Jack, so Terre Haute’s new casino now had some inconvenient ties to O’Neil’s situation.

Since Spectacle Jack was the only company that applied for the Terre Haute casino license, it now found itself in some hot water.

The IGC decided to postpone that Feb. 7 meeting, when Spectacle Jack would have likely been awarded the casino license. Instead, it started an investigation into the company.

January 2020: Construction starts in Gary

Spectacle Entertainment made a show out of the Hard Rock’s ground breaking.

The company brought in the remaining members of the Jackson 5 for the ceremony. Spectacle announced that it’s ready to “rock the region!”

Construction began on the $300 million project, with the goal of a New Year’s Eve grand opening.

December 2019: Terre Haute Rocksino

This is when the ball got rolling in Terre Haute. The city wanted to add a new casino to the area.

The building would bring new jobs and tourism to the city, but first it would need a license.

In the case of Gary’s Hard Rock, Spectacle is just transferring Majestic Star’s casino license over into the new building.

Since Terre Haute has never had a casino before, that wouldn’t be possible this time around. The Indiana Gaming Commission (IGC) would need to issue a brand-new license for the area.

The IGC opened up applications to snag that new license.

Spectacle Jack, which was a subsidiary of Spectacle Entertainment, was the only company that bothered to apply by the Dec. 1 deadline.

Since there was only one applicant, things got moving pretty quickly. The IGC scheduled a meeting for Feb. 7 to possibly award Spectacle Jack with the new license.

November 2018: Spectacle buys Majestic Star

Enter, Spectacle Entertainment.

Now that land-based casinos were on the table, there was money to be made.

At this point, Caesars Southern Indiana was already planning on moving into a new building, and out of its original riverboat. That new building opened up in 2019.

Spectacle Entertainment decided that it wanted a piece of the land-based action.

The company bought out both Majestic Star Casinos, and starting lobbying the city of Gary to consolidate the two riverboats into a new land-based casino.

Spectacle got its way, and soon enough, plans were in place to start building Gary’s Hard Rock Casino.

May 2015: Indiana land-based casinos legalized

By the time 2015 came around, casino operators were sick of Indiana’s restrictive laws.

Riverboats were still the only type of casino you could build in the state, and there are only so many prime locations on the state’s shorelines.

Eventually, lawmakers drafted bills to allow for the construction of casinos on land throughout the state.

Then, Gov. Mike Pence didn’t sign the bill, but he didn’t stand in the way either. The bill became law and Indiana was off to the races.

December 2005: Majestic buys Donald Trump’s casino

Fast forward to 2005, and Majestic Star was sick of sharing the Gary customer base.

Trump Casino was right next door, and the two riverboats were in constant competition to draw in the same customers.

“Right next door” doesn’t even do the situation justice. The two casinos were practically right on top of each other.

So how do you get rid of your closest competition?

Well, the easiest way is to just buy them out, so that’s exactly what Majestic Star did.

It purchased Trump Casino for $253 million and renamed it Majestic Star II. The riverboat has held that name ever since.

June 1996: Majestic Star Casino 0pens

1996 was still the early days of Indiana gambling.

The state’s first casino opened its doors in December 1995, so the entire industry was less than a year old.

Gary’s Majestic Star Casino was one of the first to open for business throughout the state.

Since Gary is right next to Chicago, the casino attracted customers from both Indiana and neighboring Illinois.

Back then, only riverboat casinos were allowed, so there were no large buildings on land for gambling.