Fifteen groups say they’re interested in a casino license
As you might expect, Missouri’s 13th and final casino license is drawing a crowd.
Fifteen groups — real estate developers, gambling companies, local governments — told the Missouri Gaming Commission this week that they were interested in opening a casino when the President Casino closes next month. At least five of them would put it in the St. Louis region.
All are very preliminary. The letters basically tell state officials a company is interested. Next, the commission will hold a public meeting explaining the process, and set a deadline for formal applications. But they give a picture of who might build what where.
Among the interested:
— St. Louis businessman Jim Koman, a part owner of the Casino Queen who through a separate company called Casino Celebration holds a site just south of the Chain of Rocks bridge, where he would put a $125 million riverboat casino.
— Attorney Brad Lakin, who leads North County Development LLC, which has won rezoning approval to put a casino complex on 350 acres south of the Columbia River Bottoms.
— Creve Coeur-based Isle of Capri Casinos, which didn’t specify a site and appears to be eyeing at least two. It was the only large casino company to raise its hand.
— West Alton Partners LLC, a group that tried unsuccessfully to put a riverboat in that small north St. Louis County town in 1996.
— Blue Sky Development, which owns a casino in Indiana and is interested in an unspecified site in the city of St. Louis.
— Three separate groups that are eying Cape Girardeau, including one led by Joe Uram, former chief financial officer of Argosy Gaming.
— Coastal Capital Management LLC, a New York-based casino developer run by Kenneth Shea, who led gambling operations for Carl Icahn’s Icahn Capital hedge fund.
— Ingenus Management, a Minnesota-based casino consultancy company, which is trying to win a license in Ottumwa, Iowa.
— The city of Sugar Creek, Mo., near Kansas City, which narrowly lost out on a new casino in 2008 when voters capped licenses at the current 13.
Other groups can still apply, and any proposal will need to partner with an experienced casino operator to actually win the license, said LeAnn McCarthy.
That will probably winnow down some of the proposals. So will the market study the commission plans to conduct.
"Anyone can throw out a letter of interest," McCarthy said. "But soon we’ll start to pare down."