Argosy Gaming Company was an Alton

Alton, Illinois

Alton is a city on the Mississippi River in Madison County, Illinois, United States, about north of St. Louis, Missouri. The population was 27,865 at the 2010 census. It is a part of the Metro-East region of the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area in Southern Illinois...

, Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

 based casino

Casino

In modern English, a casino is a facility which houses and accommodates certain types of gambling activities. Casinos are most commonly built near or combined with hotels, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships or other tourist attractions...

 operator.

History

The company through the political connections of its chairman William F. Cellini

William F. Cellini

William F. Cellini is co-founder of the New Frontier Companies, a group of Illinois-based real estate companies with headquarters in Chicago that employ more than 250 people statewide...

 received the first gambling license in Illinois in modern times. It began operations in September, 1991 with the opening of the Alton Belle Casino. Among the biggest initial investors was John Connors, brother of Jimmy Connors

Jimmy Connors

James Scott "Jimmy" Connors is an American former world no. 1 tennis player....

. Jimmy would later become a substantial investor with both brothers maintaining a 19 percent share after it went public. It traded on the New York Stock Exchange

New York Stock Exchange

The New York Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies at 13.39 trillion as of Dec 2010...

 under the ticker symbol

Ticker symbol

A stock symbol or ticker symbol is a short abbreviation used to uniquely identify publicly traded shares of a particular stock on a particular stock market. A stock symbol may consist of letters, numbers or a combination of both. "Ticker symbol" refers to the symbols that were printed on the ticker...

 "AGSY. The company toyed with bankruptcy in the late 1990s with John Connors personally declaring Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

In November 2004 by Penn National Gaming

Penn National Gaming

Penn National Gaming, Inc. is a diversified owner and operator of casino properties, as well as horse racetracks and associated off-track betting facilities primarily in the United States...

 acquired it for $2.2 billion in cash creating the third largest casino operator in the United States.

Casinos

• Agosy's Empress - Chicago
• Argosy Alton - Alton, Illinois
  Alton, Illinois
  Alton is a city on the Mississippi River in Madison County, Illinois, United States, about north of St. Louis, Missouri. The population was 27,865 at the 2010 census. It is a part of the Metro-East region of the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area in Southern Illinois...
  
  
• Belle of Baton Rouge formerly known as Argosy Baton Rouge
• Argosy Kansas City
• Argosy Lawrenceburg - near Cincinnati, Ohio
  Cincinnati, Ohio
  Cincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio. Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located to north of the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border, near Indiana. The population within city limits is 296,943 according to the 2010 census, making it Ohio's...
  
  
• Argosy Sioux City