The group building a new casino in South Philadelphia’s sports stadium district continues to make even more plans for its foray into the Pennsylvania casino industry. In fact, Stadium Casino, LLC is now headed online, or at least intends to go online eventually.
Stadium Casino, the Cordish Companies and Greenwood Racing partnership planning to open a second Philadelphia casino in 2020, became the third PA casino license holder to apply for an online gambling license last week.
Cordish runs Live!-branded casinos around the country. Greenwood Racing is the owner and operator of PA’s top-grossing Parx Casino in Bensalem.
Stadium beats the deadline, but barely
The jointly-owned company got its application in ahead of this Monday’s deadline to obtain a license to operate online slots, online table games, and online poker at a cost of $10 million.
For the next 30 days, PA casino license holders can still apply for separate online slots, online table games, and online poker licenses at a cost of $4 million each. After that, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) will begin accepting applications from qualified entities outside the PA casino industry.
Greenwood’s Parx Casino and the DeNaples family’s Mount Airy Casino Resort also submitted online gambling license applications prior to Stadium Casino applying.
An incomplete application
The difference with the Stadium Casino application is that it is, admittedly and unavoidably, incomplete.
In fact, Stadium Casino wrote into its application that it cannot currently provide all the information required. Mostly because it is currently under construction:
“Stadium’s current status and lack of an operating casino is so material because it renders Stadium a square peg to the interactive gaming petition process’ round hole, and deprives Stadium – presently – of the ability to provide various items of required information.
“For example, Stadium does not currently have any employees and, as such, cannot identify those which will be involved in the conduct of interactive gaming, identify how many employees will be hired for such purposes, or provide an updated hiring plan. Likewise, without an operating casino, Stadium is unable to provide detailed site plans of its planned interactive gaming restricted area or to rely on its record of operation in satisfying other elements of the petition requirements.”
The application appears to indicate Stadium Casino wants in PA’s online gambling market, just not right away.
Stadium Casino construction continues
In the meantime, construction of its $600 million casino and entertainment complex has begun. It started with the ongoing destruction of the former Packer Avenue Holiday Inn property in the sports stadium district.
Once it’s done, Stadium Casino will include a 200-plus room hotel, casino, five restaurants, nightclubs, and a parking garage. The casino will feature 2,000 slots and 125 table games. Plans are to open the doors in 2020.
Stadium Casino’s owners claim it will be the first comprehensive gaming, resort, entertainment, and sports destination in the US. However, its interest in the PA casino market does not end there, or with online gambling.
In January, gaming regulators accepted Stadium Casino’s $40,100,005 bid to build a satellite casino in the Pittsburgh-area’s Westmoreland County. Four other bids for satellite casino projects have also been accepted by the board this year.
Stadium Casino must submit a detailed application, including location information, for its license by the end of July.
Category 4 satellite casino licenses allow for the operation of between 300 and 750 slot machines. License holders can also apply to operate up to 30 table games for an additional $2.5 million fee.
Photo by Frank Romeo / Shutterstock.com
