Bally’s Evansville Reopens Casino After Tech Outage Forced Closure

Posted on: October 19, 2021, 12:38h. 

Last updated on: October 19, 2021, 01:17h.

Steve Bittenbender Read More
Expertise: Legislation, Sports Betting, Horse Racing.

Bally’s Evansville reopened late Tuesday morning after the Indiana casino closed down unexpectedly on Monday.

Bally's Evansville
Bally’s Evansville reopened Tuesday morning after officials with the company said “a hardware system outage” forced the Indiana casino to close on Monday. (Image: Bally’s Evansville/Facebook)

Diane Spiers, the executive director of public relations for Bally’s Corp., told Casino.org Tuesday that the casino reopened at 11 am CT.

The Evansville Courier & Press reported that the gaming floor closed abruptly Monday afternoon.

Due to a hardware system outage, we temporarily suspended our casino operations on Monday,” the casino’s statement read. “We are now open for business and look forward to continuing to provide a world-class entertainment destination for our guests.”

The Indiana Gaming Commission told Casino.org late Monday that it was aware of the situation.

Casino Officially Changed Name Earlier This Month

The technology issue comes just a week after Bally’s officially changed the name of the casino previously known as Tropicana Evansville.

Last year, when the Rhode Island-based gaming company was still known as Twin River Worldwide Holdings, it purchased the casino from the newly merged Caesars Entertainment as part of a $480 million deal involving Caesars and Gaming and Leisure Properties.

Caesars, which itself was being acquired and taken over by leadership from Eldorado Resorts, was required by the Indiana Gaming Commission to sell properties in order to have the $17.3 billion deal approved. The Evansville casino was the first transaction.

The casino operations cost $140 million, while GLPI bought the property for $340 million. GLPI subsequently agreed to lease the property to Twin River (now Bally’s) with annual payments starting at $28 million.

Bally’s closed on the sale in June, officially taking ownership of the casino at that time.

The Evansville purchase was one of several the company has made since the start of 2020, as it has become one of the fastest-growing gaming companies in the country. Among its other deals was the purchase of Tropicana Las Vegas in April. But the company hasn’t just focused on brick-and-mortar casinos. Other acquisitions include the purchase of online gaming company Gamesys, which closed earlier this month, and daily fantasy sports operator Monkey Knife Fight.

About Bally’s Evansville

Evansville is where the modern era of casino gaming started in Indiana. In December 1995, Casino Aztar opened the first riverboat casino in the state, nearly two and half years after state lawmakers passed the riverboat gaming act.

It rebranded under the Tropicana flag in 2013, and four years later, Tropicana officials invested $50 million to build a land-based casino at the property. Eldorado Resorts would then buy Tropicana in 2018.

Bally’s Evansville has more than 1,000 slot machines and 30 table games. In September, according to information from the IGC, it posted adjusted gaming revenues of $12.1 million, making it the second-most profitable casino in southern Indiana.

For the 2021 fiscal year, which ended in June, the Evansville casino generated more than $33.5 million in tax revenue for the state. That ranked eighth among the 12 casinos that operated in Indiana over that period.