- PENN Entertainment will spend about $195 million to move Boomtown ashore and rename it Hollywood Casino New Orleans.
- The landside floor would hold about 875 slot machines and 45 table games, against more than 700 and 33 today.
- The Louisiana Gaming Control Board and the Jefferson Parish Council must both approve, and the casino would open in 2029.
- Boyd Gaming’s Treasure Chest moved a Jefferson Parish riverboat license ashore in June 2024 for $100 million.
HARVEY, La. – PENN Entertainment will spend about $195 million to move its Boomtown riverboat casino onto adjacent land and rename it Hollywood Casino New Orleans, the second Jefferson Parish riverboat license headed for dry land since 2024.
What PENN Would Build
The company plans roughly 140,000 square feet of new development on land beside the existing boat, with about 875 slot machines, 45 table games, a retail sportsbook and several restaurants. That square footage covers the whole development, not the gaming floor alone, so it is not a like-for-like measure against the boat.
The pit is where the change actually lands. Boomtown counts 33 table games on the boat today, and the landside plan posts 45, a dozen more spots in the part of the room where the posted rules, not the building, set the price of a hand. The machine count moves less, from the more than 700 slot and video poker games the casino advertises now to about 875 in the plan.
Jay Snowden, PENN’s chief executive and president, said the investment reflects “our disciplined approach to capital allocation, prioritizing organic growth opportunities.” PENN expects to pay for it with cash on hand. It plans to vacate the riverboat once the new building opens and to keep the 150-room hotel open for now.
Jefferson Parish Has Already Done This
Boyd Gaming got there first, on the other side of the river. Treasure Chest Casino opened its landside building in Kenner’s Laketown on June 6, 2024, putting more than 900 slot machines and 32 table games on a single-level 48,000-square-foot floor after 30 years afloat. Boyd put that project at $100 million, roughly half what PENN is budgeting in Harvey.
Side by side, Boomtown’s plan is the table-heavier room. Forty-five tables against 32, while Treasure Chest keeps the edge on machines with more than 900 against about 875.
Both are riverboat licenses standing on dry land, a distinction worth keeping straight. New Orleans proper still has exactly one land-based casino, Caesars New Orleans, operating under the state’s sole land-based casino license. Boomtown and Treasure Chest do not join it, and they carry riverboat licenses wherever the gaming floor physically stands.
Louisiana’s Riverboats Keep Coming Ashore
A 2018 state law let riverboat licensees move their gaming operations up to 1,200 feet inland from their licensed berths, and the boats have been emptying out ever since. What changes is the address. The license, the tax treatment and the games stay riverboat, so the New Orleans area gets a bigger building rather than a new class of casino.
Louisiana licenses retail and mobile sportsbooks but no internet casino, which keeps it off the list of states with online casinos and keeps its casino play on a physical floor. The regulated menu of Louisiana gambling sites stops at sportsbooks, so those floors and offshore USA gambling sites are what real-money casino players in the state have to work with.
For PENN it is the fourth riverboat brought onto land. Hollywood Casino Joliet opened its landside building in August 2025 and Hollywood Casino Aurora followed in June 2026, both in Illinois, with a land-based Hollywood Casino Council Bluffs expected in Iowa in 2028.
What Still Has To Clear
The Louisiana Gaming Control Board is scheduled to take up the relocation at its meeting Thursday, Aug. 20. The Jefferson Parish Council also has to sign off, and PENN’s 2029 opening date runs from those approvals.