Top Stories In Indiana Gambling 2019: Terre Haute Casino

In 2019, significant events occurred in the Indiana gambling industry. This included the successful initiation of legal sports betting as well as the unveiling of a new Hard Rock Casino in Gary.

We will highlight a third aspect here at Play Indiana related to the Hard Rock deal. Spectacle Entertainment, in order to get the green light to construct a new land-based casino, surrendered one of its two casino licenses.

If approved by voter referendum, the second license was set to move to Terre Haute, which happened in November. All casino operators, including Spectacle, had the opportunity to bid on that casino license.

Turns out, Spectacle was the only bidder.

The Terre Haute license is anticipated to have two bidders.

The anticipation was that a minimum of two companies would submit bids for the Terre Haute casino license. It seemed logical for Spectacle to be one of them, in an attempt to recover its forfeited second license.

Meanwhile, Full House Resorts has been considering for years to transfer its unused gaming spaces from Rising Star to a new casino in Terre Haute. Earlier this year, on a conference call, CEO Dan Lee expressed confidence that the company would bid on the license if it gets voter approval.

However, there were no bids, except for another Hard Rock-licensed and operated Rocksino from Spectacle.

The application will be considered by the Indiana Gaming Commission at some point next year. However, being the only bidder does not guarantee that Spectacle will secure the license.

People in Indiana will be keenly observing how the situation with the Terre Haute casino develops in the upcoming months.