Casinos
Columbia Sussex entered the gaming industry in 1990, purchasing the High Sierra hotel in Stateline, Nevada from Del Webb Corporation for $19 million. The property was renamed as the Horizon Casino Resort.
The Lighthouse Point Casino in Greenville, Mississippi was opened in November 1996. Columbia owned the riverboat casino and a 79% stake in its operating company.
In March 2002, JMBS Casino, a Columbia Sussex affiliate controlled by William Yung's children, bought Bayou Caddy's Jubilee Casino, a riverboat in Greenville, for $42 million.
In 2002, Columbia bought the closed Maxim Hotel and Casino near the Las Vegas Strip for $38 million. After a $90 million renovation, the property was reopened in 2003 as the Westin Casuarina, using the name of Columbia's resort in the Cayman Islands.
In 2004, Columbia bought the River Palms Casino in Laughlin, Nevada and the Harrah's Vicksburg casino in Vicksburg, Mississippi, which it renamed to the Horizon Vicksburg.
In October 2004, Columbia agreed to buy the President Casino St. Louis from bankrupt President Casinos for $57 million. The company planned a $150 million residential and retail development around the casino, even though some of the land was already earmarked for Pinnacle Entertainment's Lumière Place project. The sale collapsed a year later, however, when Columbia withdrew its application for a gaming license. According to a lawsuit filed by President, the Missouri Gaming Commission was set to reject the application for "flimsy" reasons, including an IRS audit of Yung's 2000 income tax return and his use of a corporate credit card for personal expenses. President eventually won a judgment of $28 million plus $14 million in interest, for breach of contract and for unreasonable fee increases at the casino parking lot, which Columbia had already purchased.
In 2005, Columbia bought the Bally's New Orleans casino from Caesars Entertainment for $24 million. Caesars needed to sell the casino to avoid antitrust concerns in its acquisition by Harrah's, owner of Harrah's New Orleans. It was later renamed as the Amelia Belle.
The same year, Columbia bought Caesars Tahoe in Stateline from Caesars Entertainment for $45 million, and renamed it as the MontBleu.
Columbia bought the Argosy Casino riverboat in Baton Rouge, Louisiana from Penn National Gaming in October 2005 for $150 million and renamed it as the Belle of Baton Rouge. The sale assuaged FTC antitrust concerns about Penn's acquisition of Argosy Gaming, which would have resulted in the company owning the only two casinos in the city.
The company made a second attempt to enter the St. Louis market in May 2006, agreeing to pay $200 million for the Casino Queen riverboat in East St. Louis, Illinois, across the river from the President Casino. However, after ordering Casino Queen the following January to remove a minority shareholder with ties to an organized crime associate, the Illinois Gaming Board did not approve the sale by the February deadline set in the contract, and Columbia ended the deal in March.
In December 2006, Columbia opened a 317-room $150 million Westin resort with a casino on the Caribbean island of Saint Maarten.
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