Southeast : Compton Is Betting on New Card Club

After seeing the profits that the Hollywood Park Casino has brought to Inglewood over the last year, city officials in Compton are eager to open their own poker palace.

On Friday, Compton officials and Hollywood Park representatives announced plans to bring a card club to the city, which the operators hope will pump $3 million to $4 million into municipal coffers during its first year of operation.

Owned by Hollywood Park, the Crystal Park Hotel and Casino will be located on the present site of the closed Compton Ramada Hotel and Conference Center, which will be converted into a 290-room hotel with a casino featuring poker and other card games.

It is expected to open in late 1996.

Small-scale gambling clubs have been allowed to operate in Compton since voters approved a card club measure in 1934.

Since then, several small establishments including card and bingo clubs have come and gone, most recently a bingo parlor run by the Community Foundation for Social Services, which closed a year ago.

The new casino, approved by the City Council in December, 1992, will be the city’s first large-scale establishment, and the owners say it will provide up to 1,000 jobs.

So far, the Inglewood casino has brought a little less than $5 million in revenues to the city since it opened in July, 1994.