Ameristar buying casino project in Lake Charles

Ameristar Casinos Inc. said Wednesday that it will acquire a riverboat casino project under development in Lake Charles, La., for $32.5 million.

Ameristar, which has eight casino-hotels, is buying the uncompleted project from Creative Casinos of Louisiana LLC, which is headed by former Pinnacle Entertainment Inc. chief executive Daniel Lee.

Las Vegas-based Ameristar said it will take over development and raise Creative Casinos’ state-mandated minimum investment from $400 million to at least $500 million. Ameristar’s plans call for a dockside casino with 1,600 slot machines and 70 table games, a hotel with at least 700 rooms – up from 400 proposed by Creative Casinos – and an 18-hole golf course.

The resort is being developed on a 242-acre site adjacent to Pinnacle’s L’Auberge Lake Charles casino resort.

The sale will be considered by the Louisiana Gaming Control Board on Thursday.

Ameristar chief executive Gordon Kanofsky said his company plans to market the casino to players from southeastern Texas – notably Houston – and southwestern Louisiana. He called the Lake Charles area “one of the country’s largest but most underserved gaming markets.”

If the deal goes through, a riverboat project at the site leased from the Lake Charles Harbor & Terminal District will have its third owner. Pinnacle originally planned the casino in Lake Charles, but backed out of the project, saying it wanted to concentrate on a $368 million riverboat-hotel project being developed in Baton Rouge.

After a competitive process, the license was awarded to Creative Casinos. A call placed to Lee was not immediately returned.

Ameristar also said it decided to act because no remaining riverboat licenses are available in Louisiana. State law limits the number of those permits to 15.

Construction has not yet begun. Ameristar said concept drawings for the project are almost complete and Creative Casinos has a guaranteed maximum price construction contract for the project. Ameristar said it expects to open in mid-2014.

The Lake Charles casino market has been undergoing a shake-up. St. Louis-based Isle of Capri Casinos Inc. sold one of its two riverboat licenses in Lake Charles to a group developing the Margaritaville Casino in Bossier City. The Isle continues to operate the Grand Palais riverboat. In addition to L’Auberge, the market also hosts a slot machine casino at Delta Downs owned by Las Vegas-based Boyd Gaming Corp. A popular Indian reservation casino is to the east of the city in Kinder.

L’Auberge regularly leads the state’s riverboat casinos in winnings from gamblers – and occasionally pulls in more than Harrah’s New Orleans Casino, the only state-licensed land casino.

Ameristar has casinos in Mississippi, Colorado, Iowa, Indiana, Nevada and Missouri.