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LAS VEGAS, June 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Pinnacle Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE: PNK) announced today that the Company intends to build a new $350 million casino resort in Lake Charles, La., adjacent to its highly successful L'Auberge du Lac Hotel & Casino property. The new resort is a replacement for the Harrah's Lake Charles facility, which was largely destroyed by Hurricane Rita and that the Company recently agreed to acquire.

Sugarcane Bay will evoke the laid-back island feeling of the Caribbean, combined with gracious Southern hospitality in an environment of comfortable luxury. The resort will feature 400 guestrooms and suites, many with panoramic views of beautiful Contraband Bayou.

As at L'Auberge, the hotel and other amenities will surround a new single-level riverboat casino. The Sugarcane Bay casino will feature a dedicated poker room, table games and approximately 1,500 slot machines. Such casino is subject to approval from the Louisiana Gaming Control Board. Sugarcane Bay will also feature a variety of exciting new restaurants, retail shopping, a tropical pool area and an island spa. It will be connected to L'Auberge so that guests can easily access both properties.

Construction on Sugarcane Bay is expected to begin in 2007 with a planned opening in 2009, subject to final approval from the Louisiana Gaming Control Board.

Additionally, L'Auberge, which opened in May 2005, will break ground in August on its previously announced hotel room expansion. The new 250-guestroom tower will expand the total number of hotel rooms and suites to approximately 1,000. The expansion is expected to be completed in 2007.

About Pinnacle Entertainment

Pinnacle Entertainment owns and operates casinos in Nevada, Louisiana, Indiana, Argentina, and the Bahamas, owns a hotel in Missouri, receives lease income from a card club casino in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, and owns a casino site and has significant insurance claims related to a hurricane-damaged casino previously operated in Biloxi, Mississippi. Pinnacle also has two casino development projects in the St. Louis, Missouri area, which are dependent upon final approval by the Missouri Gaming Commission.