Supreme Court Building
The Iowa Supreme Court has refused to consider the lawsuit filed by owners of the former Argosy Sioux City riverboat casino owner Penn Gaming against state regulators.
The state’s high court issued a one-sentence ruling Monday that denied the Belle of Sioux City’s request for the court to review the Iowa Appeals Court ruling that concluded the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission acted properly in 2013 when it decided to grant a gambling license to another company to build the land-based Hard Rock casino.
The Argosy’s former nonprofit license holder, Missouri River Historical Development (MRHD), now works with the Hard Rock and president Mark Monson says he pleased the main issue of the three year old legal battle has been put to rest.
“We’re pretty happy that it’s over. We’re hoping that it will all be over. There’s still a lawsuit by Penn against MHRD and MHRD has a counter lawsuit. Hopefully that’ll all get resolved and will move into the future,” Monson says. One of those other unresolved legal issues is $1.8 million in proceeds owed to MRHD by Penn Gaming.
That money was withheld from MRHD when they partnered with Sioux City Entertainment to develop the Hard Rock project.
(Reporting by Woody Gottburg, KSCJ, Sioux City)