The troubled President Casino in St. Louis, Missouri, has encountered even more difficulties in recent days. Rising floodwaters on the Mississippi River have inundated the casino and its riverfront location.

The casino announced through its website that it would be temporarily closed while workers try to drain the water and repair the interior. The casino is slated to close 1 July after pressure from state gaming officials and decreased revenues.

The Missouri gaming commission has capped the number of casino licenses available in the state to thirteen. With the President’s soon-to-expire license up for grabs, many developers and gaming companies are vying for that final license.

Officials in St. Louis, the state’s largest city and home to Lumiere Place, are pursuing options to keep the newly-available license within the city limits. In preparation for a new casino facility in St. Louis, city land management officials will soon advertise for a Request for Proposals for firms considering building a new site.

At the same time, St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay criticized gaming commission board members for their decision to close down the President, despite the fact that the casino did not violate any state gaming laws that would typically call for a license revocation. Mayor Slay said that neither he nor St. Louis County officials were consulted on the state’s decision to shut down the President and that the city would lose more than two hundred jobs and US$2 million in revenues.

Pinnacle Entertainment, which owns both the President and Lumiere Place, is one of the contenders for the old license. The company also owns the new River City Casino in South St. Louis County. Other companies seeking out the license include North County Development in North St. Louis County, Dream Big LLC in Cape Girardeau and Wild Rose Entertainment LLC, based in Des Moines, Iowa, which is hoping to build a new casino complex near Kansas City.