Eldorado finishes $17.3M buyout of Caesars Entertainment

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Nevada company that started in 1973 with a single hotel-casino in Reno announced Monday it has completed a $17.3 billion buyout of Caesars Entertainment Corp. and will take the iconic company’s name going forward as the largest casino owner in the world.

Eldorado Resorts Inc. said the combined company will now own and operate more than 55 casino properties in 16 U.S. states, including eight resorts on the Las Vegas Strip.

“We are pleased to have completed this transformative merger,” Tom Reeg, former CEO of Eldorado Resorts and now CEO of Caesars Entertainment Inc. said in a statement.

Reeg promised to welcome the combined company's tens of thousands of employees and to create value for stakeholders using “strategic initiatives that will position the company for continued growth.”

The buyout also affects Caesars properties in the United Kingdom, Egypt, Canada, Dubai and a golf course in the Chinese gambling enclave of Macau. The company vaulted over MGM Resorts International as the world's largest casino operation.

The company plans to shed several properties to satisfy antitrust concerns raised before approvals were granted by the Federal Trade Commission and regulators in Indiana and New Jersey. In Nevada, executives have said they may sell at least one Las Vegas Strip property.

The New Jersey Casino Control Commission approved the deal Friday, after the combined company announced plans to sell Bally’s Atlantic City. That will leave Caesars Entertainment with three of nine casinos in Atlantic City: Caesars, Harrah’s and the Tropicana.

Executives promised federal regulators the company will sell sites in Kansas City, Missouri; South Lake Tahoe, California; and Shreveport, Louisiana. Reeg told Indiana regulators that casinos in...