The Nevada based casino company with a particular panache for the mid-western market has expanded its reach into the ripe for the picking Chicago metro market. That's right. The ever accessible Ameristar Casinos Inc. has purchased the Resorts East Chicago from Resorts International Holdings LLC for six hundred and seventy-five million dollars in a deal that is expected to finish up by fourth quarter, 2007. With casinos in Nevada, Missouri, Colorado and Indiana, this will be Ameristar's first casino in Illinois.

Ameristar has big plans for the casino, the least of which will be more parking spaces and an upgrade on all of the resort's non-gaming facilities. The bulk of their planned $200 million expansion (putting Ameristar's buy-in at nearly $1 billion), is for what Ameristar does best: Casino gambling. Once the deal has been finalized, the company will begin construction to double the size of the current casino. This would give Resorts East Chicago 4,000 additional slot machines and 120 more table games.

Ameristar President and CEO, John Boushy, referred to the Chicago casino gaming market, as "extremely attractive" and "diverse". Considering it now brings in over $2.5 billion in annual casino gambling revenue, Chicago is surprisingly the third largest gaming market in the U.S. (only behind Atlantic City).

For most non-Midwesterners, this may come as surprising news. Perhaps this is why some casino gaming analysts are a little unsure about the Chicago market and Ameristar, who on the contrary, is looking forward to unveiling their first Chicago gaming property in 2010.