Chicago is counting on a casino windfall, but Indiana gambling rivals are renovating, expanding
As Chicago considers five possible locations for a casino, an Indiana gambling facility just across the state line is making expansion plans of its own.
Spectacle Entertainment, which owns two Lake Michigan riverboat casinos in Gary, announced plans earlier this month to move those gambling operations to a 40-acre site adjacent to Interstate 80/94.
It will partner with Hard Rock to manage the new $400 million casino property, which will be just 18 miles from the Harborside location at 111th Street and the Bishop Ford Freeway, one of the five possible casino sites Chicago has selected for consultants to study.
The timing of Spectacles announcement, just a month after Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a bill that expands gambling in Illinois and allows for the construction of a large Chicago casino, is no coincidence.
Read more: https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-chicago-casino-faces-competition-with-indiana-20190725-6ok4wnepg5dgfdfw23xti6gb5y-story.html