Par-A-Dice Casino replacement will be built in East Peoria

JJ Bullock, Peoria Journal Star

Thu, December 11, 2025 at 5:01 PM UTC

8 min read

PEORIA — Boyd Gaming will attempt to build its new $160 million casino, a replacement for the Par-A-Dice Riverboat Casino, in East Peoria, settling months of speculation while also raising new questions.

Officials from Boyd Gaming unveiled their plans to build a new casino in East Peoria to the Illinois Gaming Board on Thursday morning. The gaming board will not make any determination about Boyd Gaming's plan until February.

Boyd Gaming will use a definitional loophole of the word "water-based" to build its new casino, confirming fears the city of Peoria has long held that it intended to do so.

Rules require that only a riverboat casino can operate in East Peoria. Boyd Gaming is planning on building a land-based casino on top of a basin of "Illinois River" water, according to renderings shown Thursday. They are calling this new casino, which will be on land, a "modernized riverboat."

Boyd Gaming said the casino floor will sit on a 1,000-gallon water basin of Illinois River water, which is said means the new casino will satisfy regulatory directives. The Illinois River water will be "pumped directly under the casino floor," Boyd said Thursday.

Boyd Gaming also said on Thursday that soil borings taken from the parking lot showed that the soil under the parking lot is consistent with the soil at the bottom of the river, making it one in the same.

Renderings presented by Boyd Gaming on Thursday do not show a new boat but rather a new building they will be calling a "riverboat modernization."

East Peoria Mayor John Kahl appeared in a prepared video made by Boyd on Thursday morning in which he asked the gaming board to support Boyd Gaming's plan for a new casino in East Peoria.

Boyd's proposed casino would feature 29,000 square feet of casino space, 20,500 square feet of ballroom space, a steakhouse and gastropub, according to Boyd's presentation.

The new casino would be completed in late 2028 after 16 months of construction, Boyd Gaming said Thursday.

Boyd Gaming estimates it will spend $160 million on the new casino and it will have an $890 million economic impact on the region over the next 10 years.

(This story will be updated.)

A rendering of Boyd Gaming's proposed new casino in East Peoria shows a building on land resting on top of a basin of water. Boyd Gaming will use that basin of water under the building to argue that the building is not a land-based operation.

Boyd Gaming will use loophole to build new casino in East Peoria

While plans for the new casino are clearer on Thursday, new questions will now be raised on whether Boyd Gaming has violated an intergovernmental agreement signed between Peoria and East Peoria in 1991 that dictated that any "land-based" casino constructed in the area needed to be on Peoria's side of the Illinois River.

Officials from Peoria and East Peoria have feuded over this point for months, with officials in Peoria long worrying that Boyd would deploy a loophole centered on the semantics of the "water-based" and "land-based" to build its new casino in East Peoria.

Boyd Gaming's new casino, in all practical sense, will be a land-based operation to replace the decades-old riverboat docked in East Peoria. But, utilizing a legal loophole, Boyd Gaming will pump water underneath the floor of the casino and then make the argument it rests on top of water and is therefore a "water-based" operation.

More: Peoria has spent more than $100K in its pursuit of a land-based casino

Peoria has long suspected and feared that Boyd Gaming and East Peoria were in league with one another to see a new casino built in East Peoria.

In February attorneys hired by the city of Peoria sent a letter to leaders in East Peoria informing them that they intended to "enforce" Peoria's rights established by the 1991 intergovernmental agreement.

"Please be advised that the City of Peoria intends to enforce its rights under the Intergovernmental Agreement to the full extent permitted by the law," attorneys for Peoria wrote in February. "In that regard, the City of Peoria, demands that the City of East Peoria cease all efforts to assist Boyd Gaming Corporation in relocating the Par-A-Dice Casino currently operating on its moored riverboat to a land-based location (in whole or in part) in the City of East Peoria."

The attorneys hired by Peoria, from the firm Elias, Meginnes and Seghetti, also wrote in their letter that the city of Peoria had been made aware that Boyd Gaming had drawn soil borings from the parking lot of the current Par-A-Dice Casino, another signal that it intended to utilize the water-based loophole.

In February, Peoria Mayor Rita Ali wrote a letter to the Illinois Gaming Board saying Boyd Gaming needed to build a land-based casino in Peoria or sell its gaming license. She called the use of a "water-based" definitional loophole "frivolous."

"Finally, it is important to note that it would be frivolous for Boyd or the City of East Peoria to attempt to manipulate the definition of 'riverboat' and/or 'land-based' for purposes of the above provisions of the Intergovernmental Agreement and the Act that are at issue," Ali said in her February letter. "The literal words, history and context of the Intergovernmental agreement and Act are all very clear. It is, and always has been, the intention of all concerned that if Par-A-Dice gaming operations were to move off of the existing moored vessel in East Peoria to a facility on land, those land-based operations must be in Peoria."

What does new casino mean for Peoria, East Peoria relationship?

Last year, East Peoria Mayor John Kahl and Peoria Mayor Rita Ali exchanged emails in which Kahl told Ali that if Peoria continued efforts to lure a land-based casino to its side of the river the relationship between the two cities would be "forever strained."

At that point it was East Peoria accusing Peoria of playing games as it related to the casino. It would be months later, in the February 2025 letter that Peoria's attorneys sent to Kahl, that those roles would be reversed.

More: Peoria, Boyd Gaming have discussed potential locations for a land-based casino

In a July 2024 email Kahl wrote to Ali:

"Personally, I greatly appreciate the partnership that we have formed over the last several years and am most disappointed to learn that you and your counterparts in Peoria are doing your best to force a business organization to relocate from a neighboring community to yours," Kahl wrote in an email to Ali. "With both communities benefitting equally from the Par-A-Dice gaming revenues, the City of Peoria and the City of East Peoria should be jointly supportive of Boyd Gaming and its rightful desire and decision to renovate and expands its casino operations here in East Peoria."

Ali did not want to see the relationship between the two cities "strained," but she and other Peoria city leaders took a firm stance that the 1991 intergovernmental agreement needed to be honored and if Boyd Gaming were to build a land-based casino it needed to be in Peoria.

"I have to believe, John, that if the tables were turned, that you would take the same position as I have and seek to enforce compliance with our agreement," Ali wrote to Kahl in 2024.

History of the Par-A-Dice Casino

Par-A-Dice Casino opened in 1991, initially docked on Peoria's side of the Illinois while its permanent home in East Peoria was being constructed. In 1993 the boat officially moved to its current home in East Peoria.

The current iteration of the boat was commissioned in 1994, replacing a paddlewheel boat that served as the initial casino.

When it was decided the boat would be docked in East Peoria, which came after then Peoria-Mayor Jim Maloof first bristled at the idea of gambling in Peoria, the two cities signed a revenue sharing agreement. That agreement, which still sees the two cities share revenue today, dictates that gambling revenues from the casino be split evenly between Peoria and East Peoria.

However, property taxes, hotel taxes, restaurant taxes and sales taxes all stay in the community that houses the casino, making the new operation incredibly lucrative for whichever city is host.

Decades later in 2019, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker would sign into law a measure legalizing land-based casino gambling in Illinois and thus a new chapter of the Par-A-Dice Casino battle between Peoria and East Peoria would be written.

Peoria in 2020 sent a delegation consisting of City Manager Patrick Urich; former Mayor Jim Ardis; State Rep. Jehan Gordon-Booth, D-Peoria; State Rep. Ryan Spain, R-Peoria; and a city attorney to Las Vegas to meet with leader from Boyd Gaming to discuss the new land-based legislation and reaffirm the 1991 intergovernmental agreement.

In 2023, Boyd Gaming first publicly signaled its plans to construct a replacement for the Par-A-Dice Casino and the events leading up to Thursday's announcement were officially set in motion.

More: Par-A-Dice casino history: From the legalization of gambling in Illinois to modern-day disputes

This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Boyd Gaming will build new Par-A-Dice Casino in East Peoria

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