The riverboat Hollywood Casino in downtown Aurora is set to close on June 10 in anticipation of the casino’s new $360 million location in the city, officials announced Tuesday.
The new land-based Hollywood Casino in Aurora, set to open on June 24, is located along Farnsworth Avenue and Bilter Road, across the street from Chicago Premium Outlets mall and near the Interstate 88 interchange. Not only will the new location offer a casino floor fit for around 1,200 people actively engaged in slot machines or table games, but it also will have a hotel, several restaurants, an event space and a spa.
“We are less than a month away from welcoming our loyal customers and guests to the new state-of-the-art Hollywood Casino Aurora,” Jay Snowden, CEO and president of PENN Entertainment, which owns Hollywood Casino Aurora, said in a company press release. “Our Aurora riverboat has created thousands of memorable experiences and supported economic development throughout the city for over three decades, and we look forward to replicating these successes for years to come.”
The downtown riverboat location of Aurora’s Hollywood Casino first opened on June 17, 1993. The front page of The Beacon-News read: “Tomorrow is here. After two decades of broken promises, fantasy plans and forgotten dreams, downtown redevelopment in Aurora is under way.”
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At that time, state law required that casinos be on boats that floated independently — a big difference from today’s laws allowing casinos on land. People had to by tickets to get in and schedule their cruise times.
Laws were eventually loosened, and the downtown casino was made into a more permanent and stationary structure, although it remained a riverboat.
At its peak, the riverboat Hollywood Casino Aurora employed upwards of 1,500 people. For reference, the new land-based casino set to open soon is expected to have around 700 employees, which officials have said is double what the riverboat location currently has.
The casino also brings tax dollars into the city through a gaming tax, which at its peak in 2008 provided Aurora with $15.4 million. Since then, that number has dwindled significantly.
The city of Aurora is supporting the new Hollywood Casino location through an agreed up-front payment of $50 million, to be paid back to the city through a tax increment financing district on the property. The passage of that TIF district was controversial and was opposed by current Mayor John Laesch, who was an alderman at-large on the Aurora City Council at the time.
City officials previously said that the incentive was needed to keep the casino in Aurora.
In the months following the opening of the new location of Hollywood Casino Aurora, the downtown riverboat location will be torn down as part of the casino’s agreement with the city. Aurora officials have said that there are no immediate plans for the site.
Any unused chips from the Hollywood Casino Aurora riverboat location can be cashed in at the new Hollywood Casino Aurora until the end of this year, according to the company’s news release.
Construction started on the new land-based casino in 2023, and work is finishing up ahead of opening day. Some of that work involves bringing over slot machines from the downtown casino, according to Greg Moore, vice president and general manager of Hollywood Casino Aurora.
He has said that the old property did well, but it was designed to “just be a casino.” In contrast, the new location is “a full-on entertainment complex,” he said, since it includes a casino, an entertainment venue, an outdoor courtyard, a spa, a hotel and multiple restaurants, some made through partnerships with celebrity chefs.
Hollywood Casino Aurora expects to launch a new website on June 10 to provide information on the new land-based location’s restaurant hours, menus and reservation systems, according to the company’s news release.
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Already, the new casino’s hotel is accepting reservations. Those interested can go to www.HollywoodCasinoAurora.com.
In between the downtown riverboat location closing and the new land-based location opening, dedicated customers can visit other nearby PENN Entertainment casinos, including new Hollywood Casino Joliet and Ameristar East Chicago, PENN Entertainment Senior Vice President of Operations Rafael Verde said in the company news release.
Hollywood Casino Joliet, which opened last year, and Ameristar East Chicago, just over the state line in Indiana, are part of the same PENN Play customer rewards program as Hollywood Casino Aurora, according to the news release.