The owner of the President Casino, Pinnacle Entertainment, initially decided to close it by July this year. However, the rising waters of the Mississippi River forced the casino to close earlier than expected. The casino will still reopen when the flooding stops.
According to Chris Strobbe, general manager of President, the river went up to 32 feet on Saturday when they were monitoring it. He added that the flood waters can put the safety of the casino’s guests and employees in danger.
Employees will have to work on removing scattered debris when the water recedes. Once everything is clear, the President Casino will be back in business, but there is still no telling when that will be.
The casino will still permanently close on or before July and when it indeed reopens, it will only have a few months left to operate. Pinnacle did all they could to save the President, but they only ended up getting a settlement with the gaming regulators of Missouri earlier this month.
In exchange of clearing itself with any penalty issued by the regulators, Pinnacle Entertainment agreed to close its casino by July 31. The company may still go after the licenses of the two other casinos they own in St. Louis.
The laws of the state of Missouri only issue a limited number of licenses for casinos, which makes the now vacated license of the President Casino more valuable. Developers are given until May 1 to issue their bid on the license.
