Black Hawk casinos sold

[Rick]

From yesterdays Denver Business Journal:

The Colorado Division of Insurance on Thursday gave its OK for a Nevada company to buy three Black Hawk casinos.

Golden Mardi Gras Inc., a Las Vegas company, expects to close on the purchase of the Golden Gates Casino, Mardi Gras Casino and Golden Gulch Casino on Jan. 25. The purchase wasn't disclosed.

Privately held Golden Mardi Gras is an affiliate of Golden gaming Inc.

The three Black Hawk casinos hold a combined 1,300 gambling machines. The Mardi Gras Casino is the largest with more than 700 slot machines and video poker machines.

Blake Sartini, chairman and CEO of Golden Mardi Gras, said his company has been pursuing opportunities in Black Hawk for several years.

The company's purchase of the three casinos also includes several parcels of land adjacent to the Golden Gates and Golden Gulch casinos that may be used for expansion projects.

Black Hawk represents the largest gambling market in Colorado, with a 71.8 percent market share, according to statistics released Thursday by the Division of Gaming. Black Hawk has 21 casinos. The second-largest gambling town, Cripple Creek, has 19 casinos but only a 19.4 percent share of the market.

Revenue at Colorado casinos rose 4 percent during 2004, to $726 million in adjusted gross proceeds.

[Patrick]

Is anyone else here holding out hope that all these Vegas/Nevada companies coming in and buying up Blackhawk will be a bit more ambitious and really start to get some pressure built up to relax the restrictions a bit?

[coloradotop2]

It wont happen man. The stakes will never get raised because if they do, then casinos will pop up down the hill and all the places up there will lose revenue. the blue hairs wont want to travel up to blackhawk when they can play nickles down the street from the old folks home. $5 max sucks but we're stuck with it.