Maverick Gaming to Close 8 More Washington Casinos, Cut Up to 850 Jobs
Maverick Gaming is shutting down eight more Washington state cardrooms, according to Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) filings submitted Monday, Sept. 28. The closures are scheduled to take effect Nov. 30 and could affect up to 850 employees, the latest step in a restructuring that has been shrinking the company's footprint since it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in July 2025.
Which properties are closing
The eight venues named in the filing are Caribbean Casino in Yakima, Crazy Moose Casino in Pasco, Coyote Bobs Casino in Kennewick, All Star Casino in Silverdale, Great American Casino in Everett, Palace Casino in Lakewood, Macau Casino in Lakewood, and Chips Casino in Lakewood. Notably, Palace Casino in Lakewood had originally been slated to close back when Maverick first announced closures around its 2025 bankruptcy filing, but it stayed open — it's now back on the list for good as part of this new round.
Maverick's filing leaves some room for a different outcome: the company notes the closures "are not necessarily a done deal," since its ongoing bankruptcy process could still produce a buyer willing to keep some of the properties running under new ownership.
A pattern of shrinking, not a one-off
This isn't an isolated announcement. Two other Maverick venues — Riverside Casino and Great American Casino, both in Tukwila, just south of Seattle — are already set to close Nov. 1, eliminating another 238 jobs. By Maverick's own count, five additional cardrooms have closed or been earmarked for closure since June alone.
The company's troubles trace back to an aggressive expansion: starting in 2018, shortly after the Supreme Court struck down the federal ban on state sports betting, Maverick acquired 24 Washington cardroom venues — 19 of them in 2019 alone — to become the state's largest nontribal gaming operator. The bet was that Washington would eventually legalize commercial sports betting broadly; instead, a 2020 state law gave the market exclusively to tribal casinos, limiting mobile wagering to tribal land. Maverick sued the state and federal government in 2022 over the arrangement, but the suit was ultimately dismissed. Heavy acquisition-era debt, rising interest rates, growing tribal competition, and a Washington tech-sector slowdown that hit its customer base all added financial pressure that led to last year's bankruptcy filing, as part of which Maverick has proposed selling casino, hotel, and gaming-technology assets for roughly $65.8 million.
Why it matters
For Washington state's gaming landscape, this is a continued consolidation story more than a sudden shock — Maverick has been retreating from the nontribal cardroom business it built up less than a decade ago, piece by piece, since its bankruptcy filing. For the roughly 850 workers named in this latest filing, the near-term outlook depends heavily on what happens in Maverick's ongoing Chapter 11 case between now and the Nov. 30 effective date.