By Dan Shaw, Evansville Courier & Press
Casino Aztar employees won't be affected by the bankruptcy declared Monday by the owner of the casino.
Mike Jones, the manager of Casino Aztar, said he met with employees this morning to assure them the bankruptcy won't affect their positions or pay. About 900 people work at the Evansville casino.
Aztar is owned by Tropicana Entertainment LLC, an affiliate of Columbia Sussex of Fort Mitchell, Ky.
Tropicana filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware. The company said it has assets of $2.8 billion and liabilities of $3.3 billion.
Tropicana owns 11 casinos. The bankruptcy concerns nine of them, including Casino Aztar.
Since April, Casino Aztar has been run by Robert "Tom" Dingman, a trustee appointed by the Indiana Gaming Commission. Dingman is paid by Tropicana and has been given broad powers to spend the company's money to make improvements at Aztar.
Ernest Yelton, the executive director of the Indiana Gaming Commission, said Tropicana officials told him last week the bankruptcy filing won't affect the trustee arrangement.
According to Scott C. Butera, the president of Tropicana, the bankruptcy is intended to give the company time needed to reorganize itself.
"We have more than adequate resources to meet our ongoing financial needs," he said.
The Indiana Gaming Commission appointed Dingman as a trustee after it had decided to halt an investigation into Tropicana's management of Casino Aztar. The close scrutiny came at the request of Evansville Mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel, who grew upset upon learning that Tropicana planned to lay off more workers than it had first said it would. About 1,200 people had worked at Casino Aztar when Tropicana bought it and several other casinos for around $2.1 billion.
Weinzapfel asked gambling regulators to decide if the company had violated state regulations, which require casino companies to employ enough workers to keep their properties clean and give customers good service. In December, similar concerns about the Tropicana Casino in Atlantic City led the New Jersey Casino Control commission to revoke Tropicana's operating license in that state. Butera said the bankruptcy was largely a result of that decision, which also caused Tropicana to place Casino Aztar and another casino in Vicksburg, Miss., on the sales block.
In April, Eldorado Resorts LLC, a Reno, Nev., company, said it would pay as much as $245 million for Casino Aztar. Gary Carano, Eldorado chief-operating officer, said the bankruptcy won't change Eldorado's desire to buy Aztar. Before the sale may take place, though, the Indiana Gaming Commission must decide if it will grant Eldorado a license to run the casino.
Yelton said any sale now must also be approved by the bankruptcy judge dealing with Tropicana's case.
The gaming commission had earlier hoped to decide on June 26 if it would give Eldorado a casino license. The bankruptcy makes it likely that meeting will be postponed, Yelton said.
- The Associated Press contributed to this report