Bally’s Corp. introduced Tuesday that it was buying its first on line casino on the Las Vegas Strip. The Rhode Island-based gaming firm will purchase the Tropicana Las Vegas Hotel and Casino for about $150 million from Gaming & Leisure.
Bally’s is simply shopping for the operations facet of the enterprise and won’t personal the actual property outright. Gaming & Leisure will proceed to personal the underlying property and accumulate $10.5 million in annual hire from the up-and-coming gaming firm.
In conjunction with its Las Vegas transfer, Bally’s will promote its properties in Black Hawk, Colorado and Rock Island, Illinois. The properties are being bought to Gaming & Leisure for $150 million and the day-to-day operations of these casinos will nonetheless be run by Bally’s. It can pay $12 million in hire yearly for these two casinos.
Bally’s is taking a play proper out of the MGM Resorts playbook. In late 2019 and early 2020, MGM bought Mandalay Bay, MGM Grand and Bellagio to the Blackstone Group and MGM Growth Properties in the identical kind of sale-and-leaseback deal Bally’s made. At the time, MGM referred to as it a part of its “asset-light strategy.”
Before final October, Bally’s Corp. was often known as Twin River Worldwide Holdings. The firm acquired it begin in Rhode Island, the place it owns the state’s solely two casinos, nevertheless it rapidly expanded and now owns on line casino properties in eight states. It bought the Bally’s model from Caesars Entertainment for $20 million. Bally’s Las Vegas, nonetheless, remains to be owned by Caesars.
Tropicana turns into Bally’s first Las Vegas property and second one in Nevada after it bought the MontBleu Resort from Caesars earlier this month.
“Landing a preeminent spot on the Las Vegas Strip is a key step for us,” stated Bally’s president and CEO George Papenier in a press release.
According to a report from Yahoo, the deal for Tropicana Las Vegas can be finalized in early 2022. Penn National Gaming purchased Tropicana in 2015 for $360 million, however bought the land to its spin-off firm, Gaming & Leisure for $337.5 million in hire credit.
