Pinnacle Entertainment

Pinnacle Entertainment is an American gaming and hospitality company. It operates sixteen casino properties, located in Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, and a horse track in Texas.

Pinnacle Entertainment traces its roots to 1938, when movie mogul Jack L. Warner opened the Hollywood Park Turf Club racetrack in Inglewood, California. The original shareholders included Hollywood figures such as Walt Disney, Mervyn LeRoy and Bing Crosby.

The company was incorporated in 1981 under the name Hollywood Park Realty Enterprises. It was renamed as Hollywood Park, Inc. in 1992.

After many years in the horse racing business, the company began a transformation into a casino operator. In 1997, the company acquired Boomtown, Inc. and its three casinos in Nevada, Louisiana and Mississippi for $188 million. In 1998, it acquired Casino Magic Corp. for $340 million, including two casinos in Mississippi, one in Louisiana and a controlling stake in two casinos in Argentina.

The company sold the Hollywood Park racetrack in 1999 to Churchill Downs, Inc., and in 2000 changed its name to Pinnacle Entertainment. Belterra Casino Resort & Spa made its debut in 2000 as Pinnacle's first company-designed and developed gaming resort. Then in 2005, Pinnacle opened L'Auberge du Lac in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

In September 2006, Pinnacle agreed to purchase the Sands Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey and announced plans to replace it with a $1.5-billion resort. The property closed on November 11, 2006 and was demolished on October 18, 2007. Harsh economic times later caused Pinnacle to delay construction of the new resort. In February 2010, the company announced that it had canceled its construction plans and would instead seek to sell the land. Eventually it was sold in 2013 for $29.5 million to a group of local developers who planned to build a casino or family entertainment attraction.