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Major additions are in
the works
Bluffs Run Casino has
some major expansion plans on the table for review by the Iowa Racing and
Gaming Commission.
The Council Bluffs casino hopes to add table games, a Texas Holdem poker
room, a 400-seat buffet and a steak house. The $85-million expansion also
would include a new name: Horseshoe Casino.
The expansion is the latest escalation in Council Bluffs' gambling
competition. In July, the racing commission approved a $26-million expansion
and remodeling at Ameristar.
Bluffs Run built itself around the dogs.
It opened in February of 1986 and added slot machines nine years later but
because it's not along a river, it lacked table games like poker and
blackjack.
That will likely change in two years.
Harrahs/Bluffs Run Vice President of Marketing Heidi Hamers says, "What we
know is the market has been growing at a rate of 10% a year. And again, it's
undersupplied."
In March, Bluffs Run received the go-ahead from the gaming commission to
expand to the tune of $39-million.
A month later, Iowa lawmakers approved plans to allow table games at
racetracks.
Bluffs Run's decision to expand more than doubles its original plan and
comes on the heels of Nebraska voter rejection of expanded gambling two
weeks ago. Is there a correlation?
Hamers says there is no correlation.
"It didn't hinge on it at all," she says. "In terms of planning the project,
we've been doing that for some time. So as a result, our plans were not
contingent on Nebraska's vote whatsoever."
The dog track won't change much. It will still be called Bluffs Run but the
expanded casino will add the Horseshoe to its title.
Harrahs, which owns Bluffs Run, bought the Horseshoe name this summer and
also has the rights to the popular "World Series of Poker" tournament.
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