Bally’s Casino Plan Near Penn State Campus Wins Critical State Supreme Court Ruling
Posted on: July 18, 2024, 05:08h.
Last updated on: July 18, 2024, 07:05h.
The Bally’s Corporation and its local development partners in State College, Pa., near Penn State University this week scored a major court victory.
More than 10 months after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal of the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board’s (PGCB) decision to issue a gaming license to a casino project at State College’s Nittany Mall, the state’s high court ruled that the plaintiff’s arguments are without merit.
Stadium Casino RE, LLC, the losing bidder for the PGCB’s September 2020 auction round for the Category 4 “mini-casino” license, challenged whether winning bidder Ira Lubert violated the state gaming agency’s application rules. Category 4 casinos were made available through a 2017 gaming expansion package but only the state’s current slot license holders and significant investors in the concessions qualified to bid on the satellite venues.
Lubert, through his 3% equity stake in Rivers Casino Pittsburgh, qualified for the auction. So did Stadium Casino, a fully owned subsidiary of The Cordish Companies, which at the time was constructing Live! Casino & Hotel Philadelphia.
Challenge Dismissed
Stadium attorneys argued that Lubert violated PGCB bidding rules by orchestrating a partnership with two other Pennsylvania businessmen — Robert Poole and Richard Sokolov, the latter being a current trustee of Penn State University — before submitting his $10,000,101 winning bid. Since Poole and Sokolov didn’t qualify to bid independently, Stadium alleged Lubert’s bid should have been disqualified.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court this week didn’t agree.
It is undisputed that although the funds were wired from Lubert’s account, he did not pay the entire amount himself, as various individuals and entities contributed funds toward the payment of the winning bid,” the court conceded.
But Justice Christine Donohue, who wrote the court’s unanimous opinion and was joined by Chief Justice Debra Todd and Justices Kevin Dougherty, David Wecht, Sally Updyke Mundy, Kevin Brobson, and Daniel McCaffery, said it rejects “Stadium’s attempt to equate financial interests with ownership.”
Though Poole, Sokolov, and anyone else, including possibly Bally’s, who helped Lubert pay the $10 million fee within 48 hours of winning the Sept. 2, 2020, auction might have been told they’ll receive stake or shares in the forthcoming casino, the court ruled that Lubert at this time retains 100% control of the Cat. 4 license. For that to change, the PGCB would need to approve the additional owners after conducting background checks on those individuals/entities to make sure they’re suitable to hold direct ownership in a state gaming license.
Therefore, the state Supreme Court concluded that the PGCB did properly vet Lubert’s bid or payment, and Lubert also acted appropriately, or at least within the applicable law.
Township Welcomed Casino
About five months after Lubert, through his entity SC Gaming OpCo, paid the $10 million fee in exchange for the Cat. 4 license, the former Penn State trustee announced Bally’s Corp. as the $123 million casino’s development partner and future operator.
The development group in early 2021 revealed plans to renovate a former Macy’s department store at the Nittany Mall just a few miles from the Penn State University Main Campus into a casino with up to 750 slot machines and an initial allotment of 30 table games, plus a sportsbook.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision clears the way for Lubert and Bally’s to begin construction on its mall casino, though no timeline’s yet been made public.
A grassroots coalition of residents in the State College community continues to inundate Casino.org’s coverage of anything related to Bally’s with comments against the company, which is amid financial turmoil and has faced recent credit downgrades. The Pennsylvania residents have expressed hostility to a possible casino coming to their community and have focused their outrage on Bally’s recent operational blunders.
However, the blame for the Bally’s Pennsylvania project might be better directed at the College Township Council, which failed to opt out of being considered for a Cat. 4 casino in 2017 when the PGCB allowed municipalities to exclude themselves from being targeted for a mini-casino. More than 1,000 other townships withdrew from consideration.
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Last Comments ( 19 )
On July 31, Bally's announced that construction of the Bally's casino in State College, PA is expected to begin in the first HALF of 2025. Mark your calendars and place your bets now on the likelihood of that happening by then.
How dare this casino move in to State College and rip off the students! Only PSU and the apartment rental companies are allowed to do that.
As a PSU alum, this is spot on, Landrew! Has anyone ever received an apartment deposit back in full? :)
Please do not let a casino come to State College. We don't need it and the students at Penn State don't need what it will bring. We love our community and don't want it to be runied by a Casino. We love our town the way it is.
If members of the mob had given Ira Lubert the money to pay for this casino license, would anyone really believe that the mob did not actually control the casino? Would the Court really still approve the license because the mob’s financial interest in the casino would not constitute ownership? The difference between who owns the casino license and who controls the casino and benefits from its operation makes no meaningful difference, except to provide a way for the Court to rationalize its desired decision in this case. The implication of this nonsensical ruling is that anyone at all can purchase a casino license and operate a casino in Pennsylvania, as long as they have enough money and they are smart enough to hire a straw buyer to obtain the license and perform the day-to-day management of the casino on their behalf.
Just two really easy (softball) questions here: 1) Will Bally's Chairman Mr. Soo Kim publicly say out loud if he will commit to Bally's seeing this unwanted Nittany Mall casino through to completion? 2) Who will ask him that first?
Good point about the gambling thrills now sought by the Penn State college students in State College. It is "way cool" for them to brag to their friends about betting on Katie Ledecky or Simone Biles to achieve victories at the Olympics. Picture the crowded college bars with sports fans now hooked on gambling who are cheering loudly throughout the event and then doing high-fives to celebrate those wins. Do they experience that at a slot machine? No way. Do college students know of and follow perfect blackjack strategies? No way. When they hit that "6" when the dealer is also showing a "6", expect the daggers of anger to erupt at the table. No high-fives for them -- and no going back. When the casino developers won the bid to apply for a casino license in September 2020, online sports betting was only a dream in Pennsylvania. Now, it is the dream that came true and online sports betting will continue to accelerate while those 750 slot machines sit there in silence at the Bally's Nittany Mall casino. Remember also, once the old-timers in town lose all of their discretionary spending money they will swiftly write the casino off as a lesson learned.
Bally's has already forgotten the most important detail. The residents of the bucolic college town of State College do not want a casino just four miles away from the main campus of Penn State University. Strong community opposition has been in place since August 2021 and it remains that way today. See for yourself at the SayNoCasino website. It won't be a successful casino in Happy Valley when it fails soon after opening. Penn State college students enthusiastically bet on sports with their phones. They are not about to spend their evenings in front of a slot machine at a Bally's casino in a former Macy's department store. Their Penn State student peer group would roll their eyes immediately so don't hope for them to be thrilled rolling dice either!
Previous comment by SC resident says it all much better than I. Disgusting. Shameful. So many bad judgments along the way.
Casinos exist all over the country in various shapes and forms--gas station mini mart slot machines; local casinos with green felt tables and tech-based gaming; Las Vegas style enterprises with bars, restaurants, flashing lights, bells, whistles...Gambling is here to stay, for better or for worse, and it is now more than ever, readily available to anyone of age who cares to try their luck at making it big: online, in brick and mortar casinos, or just pushing buttons while seated on mini mart gambling stools. The mere existence of gambling as a form of entertainment or hope or temptation or addiction is an issue greater than something that we as ordinary citizens can work to mitigate or better control. However, the existence of a casino within only 4 short miles of Penn State University, in this bucolic, family-oriented community of State College, will predictably lead to more negative consequences than positive ones, regardless of the potential job opportunities for local residents and the potential major economic gain for the township. The casino will definitely serve as a new entertainment venue for PSU students, their parents, local residents...but gambling is high risk entertainment, it comes with a very high price tag. And the potential for personal financial loss and emotional fallout far outweighs the potential for corporate gain. Some of us are adamantly opposed to this type of establishment being built so close to Penn State--for the students and for our community.
The struggling Nittany Mall in State College, PA is owned by the Namdar Realty Group. Search for Namdar and learn about their well-known and ongoing reputation for buying dying and struggling shopping malls. Only then should you venture over to YouTube and watch the four or five videos there about the Nittany Mall. It is certainly not a brilliant location for a brand-new Bally's casino!
George, those real facts you could not find are available at the SayNoCasino site online. Take a look.
@George -- The real facts, all of them, are provided at SayNoCasino[dot]org. Be sure you scroll down through all of the real facts included there.
Finally some common sense has prevailed. While I do not indulge in gambling, to think this will cause all of these issues is another example of fear mongering that happens all over today. When some do not get their way, and have no real facts to support their views, they create false narratives to cause fear. The loudest voices do not always win, thankfully. This mall has nothing happening, and has been losing businesses for some time. People could have given alternatives when the public meetings were happening, but that did not occur. Only after approval did the oppositions come forward, after the final public input meeting. Look at the small casinos similar to this in PA and western MD, and they have no such issues. Online gambling is already here, and its potential for harm is much worse. I respect all views but be consistent, and realistic. One against this should also be against all gambling, like lotteries and keno and everything else. It is here and PA should reap the benefits and not lose out. The security in these casinos is major as well, just go visit one. And many new full time and good paying jobs will now be available to Centre County. Wanna bet how it turns out?
Did you ever watch anyone's family home become a broken home? That's a perfect example of what happens when a gambling addiction causes the death of someone's dreams. The Bally's casino in State College will never benefit anyone who regularly patronizes the place. It will be a shiny, noisy and glitzy distraction that allows the well-connected to get wealthier at the expense of hard-working central Pennsylvania families and individuals who will regularly lose their paychecks, Social Security payments and their gas and grocery money. That's OK, some say the "Great Value" brand is "just as good!" It's time to plan for the future casino chaos that Bally's hoped we would never anticipate Nice try, Bally's. Fortunately, we have already noticed your champagne dreams and your beer budget. We understand your tactics -- so please just focus on your Bally's Chicago casino and hope for your September 2026 ribbon-cutting ceremony there. Odds are you'll struggle to achieve that too.
The Nittany Mall Casino will bring gambling addiction to the bucolic college town of State College, PA. How can friends and family members recognize a gambling addiction? What does gambling addiction look like? How is that officially described anyway? It's not a vague definition that varies from person to person depending on their own individual and specific circumstances. The DSM-5's (Google it) official criteria for diagnosis are exhibiting FOUR of the following NINE criteria during the past 12-month period: 1) Need to gamble with increasing amounts to achieve the desired excitement. 2) Restless or irritable when trying to cut down or stop gambling. 3) Repeated unsuccessful efforts to control, cut back on or stop gambling. 4) Frequent thoughts about gambling such as reliving past gambling or planning future gambling. 5) Often gambling when feeling distressed. 6) After losing money gambling, often returning to get even (chasing one's losses). 7) Lying to hide gambling activity. 8) Risking or losing a close relationship, a job, or a future school or a future job opportunity because of gambling. 9) Relying on others to help with money problems caused by gambling. That's it. No need to guess about the official criteria anymore. No need to wonder about what to look for. Friends and family members should now know exactly what to look for. Especially after the grand-opening of the Nittany Mall Casino in Happy Valley.