Four-year Pennsylvania mall casino saga decided in court ruling
A new casino will finally be coming to Pennsylvania after winning favor in a ruling from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
State College, which is home to Penn State University, will house a casino in Nittany Mall, after developers SC Gaming was given the green light to press ahead with its plans, bringing to an end a four-year legal saga.
Back in September 2020, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) arranged a bidding round for casino tenders, and the licensing process involved an auction.
At the time, the license up for grabs was a Category 4 casino, which was deemed a “mini-casino”, as it could only house a maximum of 750 slot machines and 40 table games. There were also strict geo-blocks placed, namely that such a casino couldn’t be within 25 miles of another licensed casino.
Ira Lubert, who is the part owner of Rivers Casino, Philadelphia, won the auction with a $10 million bid, and from there, he went on to establish SC Gaming, which would be the company named to construct a casino in the mall.
Stadium Casino, the development group that controls Live! Casino Hotel and Philadelphia, were disgruntled with the original decision, lodging a formal appeal with the PGCB.
Their main bone of contention centered around the legitimacy of the bid, and the appeal request was approved.
However, the Supreme Court unanimously decided to rule in favor of SC Gaming, insisting concerns raised over the intentions of the bid only served to prove its legitimacy.
Now SC Gaming has fulfilled the requirements set, it has been given the green light to build the casino.
It is expected to take up to 12 months to complete, and the venue will have 750 slot machines, 30 table games, a sportsbook, and a sports-themed bar spread over 94,000 square feet of gaming space.
Originally, the establishment was slated to cost $123 million to build, however, the proposed figure will likely soar.
Intriguingly, when the Nittany Mall Casino rolls out the red carpet, it will be joining a highly competitive casino environment.
Recent figures have shown that PA is a behemoth when it comes to iCasinos, generating over $200 million in revenue, and it is a similar story when it comes to land-based establishments.
The new Nittany Mall casino has the potential to be a success, and Lubert will be hoping the wait was all worth it.
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