Boardroom coup: New CEO for local casino

The parent company of Rising Star Casino Resort has a new CEO following a boardroom coup.

Struggling Full House Resorts has been under siege since October, when major shareholders called for a special meeting to make changes to the board. On Monday, the company announced its top two executives, chief executive Andre Hilliou and chief operating officer Mark Miller, have resigned and that the board of directors will be expanded from five to nine.

The new leadership and new members on the expanded board likely delays – and possibly ends – the company's previous plans to sell itself. The company, under the previous management and smaller board, announced on Oct. 22 it was for sale. Full House now says it continues to "evaluate alternatives for the company."

Daniel Lee, who led the shareholder revolt and is the new CEO, is meeting with Rising Star employees this week as he takes the helm. A veteran casino executive, Lee previously ran Pinnacle Entertainment – the parent company of Belterra Park in Anderson Township and Belterra Casino Resort in Florence, Indiana – from 2002 to 2009. As the former chief financial officer of Mirage Resorts, Lee was a top lieutenant to legendary casino mogul Steve Wynn from 1992 to 1999.

"I look forward to meeting all of the Full House employees and to working together to make Full House Resorts into a strong and successful company building value for shareholders," Lee said.

Full House could use a turnaround. Shareholders in the Las Vegas casino chain have seen half their investment evaporate in the last year as Full House stock dropped more than 50 percent to $1.25 on Friday. The company has lost $12.7 million in the last 12 months on revenues of $126.1 million.

Besides Rising Star which generated almost half the company's $144.7 million in revenue last year, Full House also owns one casino each in Nevada and Mississippi and manages a fourth in Nevada. Rising Star is Full House's largest property.

Opened in 1996 as the Cincinnati region's first casino, the former Grand Victoria Casino & Resort was bought for $43 million and renamed the Rising Star by Full House in 2011. Since then, Full House invested $8 million to add a second hotel on the Rising Sun property.

In its heyday in 1998, the casino raked in nearly $163 million in gambling revenue, but Rising Star has seen its fortunes decline as new gambling venues opened in or near Hamilton County. In 2013, it made $65 million, and its market share has dwindled in 2014 to less than 7 percent of Greater Cincinnati's increasingly competitive landscape.