Sumner County Casino Developers Offer Smaller Proposals

The state of Kansas has not had an easy time trying to find developers for their four state owned casinos. It has been two years, and of the four zones, only one casino is in the process of being built.

The other three zones have had developers back out of deals for various reasons. Harrah's pulled out because of the economy, while Penn National pulled out because of their belief that their company could not offer a strong enough product to compete with a neighboring tribal casino.

Whatever the cases may have been, the state is now searching for new proposals for three of their zones. Sumner County is one of those zones, and on Tuesday, developers began to unveil their proposals to the Sumner County Commission.

Three different proposals are being offered, and they cover five different locations. Some of the developers attempted to win the casino rights the first time around, but have come back with scaled down models of their first proposals.

Lakes Kansas Casino proposed spending $265 million, that is $15 million above the state requirement of $250. Developers of Chisholm Creek and Prairie Sky Casinos both have plans on spending only the minimum in their proposals.

The original plans for most of the developers included hotels and entertainment facilities, but for now they have squashed those plans. The "extras" would come later, with the focus on simply getting the casino built in Sumner County.

May 5, 2009
Posted By April Gardner
Staff Editor, CasinoGamblingWeb.com
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