Construction of a satellite casino at Nittany Mall in College Township, Pennsylvania will proceed, but Bally’s will no longer be a part of the project.
Bally’s and its former partner in the project, Ira Lubert’s SC Gaming, announced today that they were ending their contract by mutual agreement. SC Gaming says that there is no change in the construction timeline due to Bally’s exit. It still plans to have the State College casino up and running by 2026.
Ironically, Bally’s involvement is the reason the project has taken so long to get underway. All the other Category 4 satellite casinos approved by the state have long since begun operations. However, only companies and individuals already involved with gaming in the state were able to bid for those licenses. Having Bally’s—an out-of-state entity—attached to SC Gaming’s bid provoked a lawsuit against the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) by losing bidder Stadium Casinos.
Although the PGCB and Lubert prevailed in that case, it has proven to have been a long and costly fight over nothing, now that Bally’s no longer wants to be a part of the project.
Why is Bally’s Abandoning Its Pennsylvania Casino Plans?
In its press release announcing the separation from SC Gaming, Bally’s said only that its “corporate strategic priorities have shifted elsewhere.”
Part of that may be the hugely expensive Bally’s Chicago resort project, which has just gotten underway. Securing funding for that wasn’t a simple matter for Bally’s, so it may be looking to rein in any other significant capital expenditures.
However, one of the advantages to Bally’s of having a satellite casino in Pennsylvania would have been access to the online sports betting market.
Due to Pennsylvania’s quirky regulatory structure, Bally’s was able to purchase a master license for its Bally Casino iGaming site as a “qualified gaming entity” from out-of-state, but no such option exists for sports betting. Conversely, satellite casinos aren’t eligible for iGaming licenses, but each is able to partner with a single online sports betting skin.
So, Bally’s has been operating as a standalone online casino since June 2023. The presumption was that it would add its Bally Bet online sportsbook at a later date, with the State College satellite casino as its land-based partner. However, like many online operators, it has found casino gaming to be the much more financially advantageous vertical.
The talk of a shift in strategic priorities may be an allusion to this. If market access was a major factor in its initial interest in the project, then naturally that interest would wane along with Bally’s enthusiasm for online sports betting more generally.
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