- DEADWOOD — A casino owned by actor and director Kevin Costner has shut down after operating for 26 years in the western part of South Dakota. Midnight Star in Deadwood permanently closed its.
- Deadwood Casino Goes Bankrupt Two Months After Kevin Costner Closes Midnight Star Deadwood casinos have been struggling in recent years as visitation numbers have declined to South Dakota’s.
Kevin Costner's Midnight Star Bar And Casino - 677 Main St, Deadwood, South Dakota 57732 - Rated 4.5 based on 99 Reviews 'Stopped for lunch today-could.
The Midnight Star shuttered in Deadwood, South Dakota this week. The casino was owned by Kevin Costner.
The Main Street casino became the latest casualty in the struggling Deadwood gaming market. Four Aces, Wild West, Miss Kitty’s Bourbon Street, and Union Palace are among the Deadwood casinos that folded in recent years.
Midnight Star was a small two-story casino. It spread slots and video poker games on the first floor. The second floor offered live blackjack and Three Card Poker. The minimum bet at these tables was $2 on weekdays and $5 on weekends. The maximum bet was $100.
Jakes was a high-end restaurant on the third floor of Midnight Star until it closed in March 2016. The casino offered a sandwich shop until its final days.
Deadwood Gaming Revenues Continue to Decline
Deadwood has seen a slow decline in gaming revenues in recent years. It is down 3.47 percent year-to-date. There have only been two positive months in the past year. There have been four months out of the last 12 that were down double digits, including a decline of 24 percent in December.
The city’s gaming operators hoped that craps and roulette would improve visitation. The games have not performed as expected. In July, craps and roulette accounted for just 0.4 percent of all gaming revenues, according to the South Dakota Gaming Commission. That number often does not break 1 percent in a month.
Operators blame several factors for the decline in Deadwood tourism. The region’s dependence on energy is the most recent negative event. The largest coal mine in the world is located across the state line in Wyoming. The lower demand for coal and the decline in oil prices have hurt the region’s economy.
Midnight Star Kicked Me Out Due to Old Knee Injury
Some locals had bad experiences there that made them feel unwelcome at Midnight Star. I had one of those.
I once lived outside of Deadwood. I frequented many casinos in town. Midnight Star made it very clear that it did not want my action during my only attempt to play there.
The decision had nothing to do with gambling. I went to Midnight Star with a group of friends to play blackjack on a Saturday afternoon. The tables were upstairs, which required going up an old staircase. It was steep with narrow stairs.
I have a knee injury that does not usually give me issues. However, it makes it difficult for me to go up steep stairs and hills.
I struggled a little to get to the top of the stairs at Midnight Star on my way to play blackjack. When I got to the top, a table game supervisor stopped me and told me that I was not welcome to play there. He said that I was too intoxicated. I was completely sober. He was mocking me for a permanent injury, whether he knew it or not.
Instead of making some attempt to see if I was intoxicated and not disabled when I got to the top of the stairs, he just assumed I was drunk and refused to let me explain anything. He got angry when I tried. Some of the friends I was with were drunk, but since they got up the staircase quickly, they were not questioned. They all left Midnight Star with me without playing.
Midnight Star kicked me out for having a bad knee that was aggravated by poor casino design. I never tried to play there again.
After this happened, I discovered that many other locals had poor interactions with employees at this casino. There was a widespread belief that Midnight Star did not like locals. Perhaps the opinion of locals made it difficult for the casino to survive when tourism declined.
Confusion Over When the Casino Opened
Kevin Costner released a statement related to the closure of Midnight Star to the Rapid City Journal. In the release, Costner says that the casino opened in 1989 when Deadwood legalized gambling. It actually opened in 1991, as the Rapid City Journal notes. The sign above the entrance also shows that it was established in 1991, as seen in the image to the right.
Midnight Star flourished until bigger, flashier casinos came to South Dakota.
Kevin Costner is closing the Midnight Star, a casino he opened in South Dakota 26 years ago. Costner told the Rapid City Journal he was closing the casino with a “heavy heart”, but he was “enormously proud of what the Midnight Star became.”
The Midnight Star was a success when it first opened in the Black Hills of South Dakota in 1991. The development offered retail shopping, a restaurant, and club facilities. It also had Kevin Costner memorabilia, while portraying American frontier life.
The casino opened the same year that Costner’s Oscar-winning western, Dances With Wolves, debuted. Dances With Wolves was set in South Dakota, so the California-born Costner maintained a special love for the area. Costner once said he opened the Midnight Star due to his “deep love for Deadwood and the Black Hills of South Dakota.”
Tribal Gaming Killed The Midnight Star
Unfortunately, the spread of tribal and commercial casinos across the United States made the Midnight Star an afterthought in the regional gaming market. While Costner’s casino employed 40 staff members, other operations in the Midwest employed hundreds — sometimes thousands — of workers.
Many of those casinos were closer to population centers. As the gaming market fragmented, most gamblers stayed closer to home. Kevin Costner has been downsizing his investment in South Dakota for a while. He sold 1000 acres of land in 2013 for $14 million. Deadwood Hospitality Resort LLC, a hotel management company, paid $7.5 million for 100 acres of that land.
No Sell of Midnight Star
The Midnight Star does not appear to be on the market. In a statement before its Tuesday closing, Costner said, “So it is with a heavy heart that I have to say that today (Tuesday) the lights of the Midnight Star will go out for the last time. I will be eternally grateful for the dedication and hard work of all of the management and staff at the Midnight Star.”
The decision to close the venerable casino seems to have caught South Dakota gaming regulators by surprise. Craig Sparrow, the Deputy Executive Secretary of the South Dakota Gaming Commission, said he had “no comment about nothing” when asked for a comment on the Midnight Star’s closure.
Kevin Costner in Molly’s Game
Kevin Costner All Movies
The Midnight Star is not the only connection Kevin Costner has to gambling. At present, Costner plays a supporting role in Aaron Sorkin’s film, Molly’s Game, which is a biopic about “Poker Princess” Molly Bloom’s role in an illegal high stakes poker game involving some of Hollywood’s elite actors and Wall Street’s elite financiers.
Molly’s Game is based on Molly Bloom’s 2013 autobiography, “Molly’s Game: From Hollywood’s Elite to Wall Street’s Billionaire Boys Club, My High-Stakes Adventure in the World of Underground Poker”. The story details a private poker game which included movie stars like Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Affleck, and Tobey McGuire. Costner plays Molly’s psychologist father, while Jessica Chastain plays the title character. Idris Elba and Michael Cera also star.
In her book, Molly Bloom claimed she was an average, everyday person who was recruited to serve as hostess for a poker game involving some of Hollywood’s biggest stars. When she went on trial for her role in the $100 million poker ring, she was dubbed the Poker Princess by the tabloid press. The main draw of her book was to see which celebrities came off as genuinely nice guys (Ben Affleck) and which were not nice (Tobey McGuire).
While it is the opinion of one person who met actors in one specific situation (and could be lying), Molly Bloom’s anecdotes have become common fodder in the gaming world and entertainment world. The actors in the Molly’s Game movie are a pastiche of the actors in the book, and not identified by name.
Tin Cup Proposition Bets
Cheech Marin once described a proposition bet on the set of Tin Cup, in which Kevin Costner played a washed-up golfer. Phil Mickelson, who was playing himself in the film, took $1200 bet from the actors on the set whether he could hit a ball straight over a tree. He did, and collected the cash before the ball even landed.
Kevin Costner Casino Deadwood South Dakota
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