No rush to build new resort attached to A’s ballpark, Bally’s says

A Bally’s Corp. executive said Wednesday there’s no urgency in developing plans for a resort attached to a Major League Baseball stadium being built by the Oakland Athletics on the Tropicana site.

In response to a question from an analyst in Bally’s first-quarter earnings call, Charles Diao said the company is in no rush to complete plans for a resort because the value of the site will increase as time passes.

The Tropicana closed April 2 and Bally’s affirmed that it had received permits from Clark County to demolish buildings by October. Sources have said the company is planning an implosion.

The Oakland Athletics plan to build a $1.5 billion, 33,000-seat indoor baseball stadium on the Tropicana site with play expected to begin in spring 2028. Bally’s and landowner Gaming & Leisure Properties Inc., a real estate investment trust, have said the Athletics are getting nine of the site’s 36 acres for the stadium, and the rest eventually would be developed as a casino resort to be known as Bally’s Las Vegas.

But the company is in no hurry to detail those plans.

“We have minimal capital required to supply to them (the Athletics),” said Diao, senior vice president of finance, in response to an inquiry about when details of the resort would be rolled out.

“We have absolutely no urgency whatsoever to get to certainty because our option value increases over time closer to the date and (with) the more that they invest closer to the 2028 season. While we understand that you would like to have some certainty, that’s not how we maximize the value of that option.”

Bally’s has at least two other projects taking priority over Las Vegas plans.

The company is building Chicago’s first-ever casino resort and plans to open a temporary site in the fall. It’s also a bidder for an upstate New York gaming license — a process that has been delayed into 2025.

Executives gave brief updates to those plans and said the company is happy with initial results from the company’s new iGaming operation in Rhode Island launched in March.

Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on X.