The Atlantic City Press has reported that global casino operator, Pinnacle Entertainment, remains committed to taking their time at constructing their proposed $1.5 billion casino resort in Atlantic City. Planned to go up where the Sands Casino Hotel used to have their doors opened, Pinnacle says the mega resort will open in 2011 at the earliest, with a possibility of a grand opening taking place in 2012.

Pinnacle Entertainment has been faced with difficult times, largely due to the seemingly never-ending string of problems at their new St. Louis downtown casino, Lumiere Palace, which has been overrun with construction miscalculations. Now estimated at $495 million, the Lumiere Palace Casino had an initial price tag of $430 million. However, due to unforeseen construction costs, the dent in Pinnacle's pocketbook has been growing. Lumiere Palace is scheduled to open their doors in downtown St. Louis before 2008.

As for Pinnacle Entertainment's property in Atlantic City, which the company purchased from Las Vegas Sands in November of last year for $250 million, the work has hardly begun. But already, Pinnacle has discovered new ways of saving on costs. For one, all of the casino card tables and slot machines that came stocked inside the Sands Casino Hotel will be used at other Pinnacle Entertainment casinos throughout North America.

Pinnacle Entertainment already owns and operates casinos in Nevada, Missouri, Indiana, Louisiana, the Bahamas and Argentina, while the proposed site in the heart of the Atlantic City boardwalk will mark Pinnacle's entrance into Atlantic City.