Spectacle Gary News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

GARY — The show that never ends officially has begun. The Hard Rock Casino Northern Indiana opened its doors to the public Friday, more than 20 years after former state Sen. Earline Rogers, D-Gary, first proposed land-based gaming in the Steel City, and some 16 months after construction started adjacent to eastbound Interstate 80/94 at the Burr Street exit. In an only-at-Hard Rock touch, the opening was marked by some two dozen casino officials, local dignitaries, and musicians smashing logo-emblazoned guitars in front of a wall of ground sparkler fireworks with Fall Out Boy's "Light 'Em...

The Indiana Gaming Commission is raising the stakes in its standoff with a principal owner of Gary's Majestic Star casinos and the new Hard Rock Casino Northern Indiana. The state gaming regulatory agency has filed paperwork to permanently revoke the occupational gaming license of Rod Ratcliff. Ratcliff's license already was suspended by the commission on an emergency basis Dec. 23 — an action Ratcliff is challenging at the Lake Superior Court in Hammond. Revocation would remove Ratcliff permanently from Indiana's gaming industry. His current in-limbo status, however, is disrupting th...

Ratcliff Centaur owned and operated the state’s two horse-track racing casinos until selling them to Caesars Entertainment in 2018. Spectacle Entertainment now operates the Majestic Star I and Majestic Star II casinos on Lake Michigan and is partnering with Hard Rock to construct a $300 million land-based casino in Gary that will replace those riverboats. And now the commission is trying to take away Ratcliff’s gaming license for good while alleging that he funneled money from Centaur into a personal gambling account and repeatedly concealed financial information from the commission that ...