After filing for bankruptcy in 2025, Maverick Gaming has announced the closure of two casinos in Tukwila, Washington, leaving 238 employees without jobs.
Maverick operates casinos and poker rooms in Washington, Colorado, and Nevada. High-stakes poker player Eric Persson co-founded the company and serves as CEO.
The news of closing the Great American Casino and the Riverside Casino in Tukwila was revealed when the company filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) with the state.
The city of Tukwila is located a short drive south of Seattle. The closures are set for Nov. 1.
Closings Follow Bankruptcy Filing
The pink slips will affect cashiers, bartenders, dealers, cooks, and management, according to MyNorthwest.
The closures come as the company works through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. Maverick is based in Kirkland, Washington.
The filing came after Maverick restructured debt in 2024. As part of Chapter 11, the gaming operator listed between $100 million and $500 million for both assets and liabilities. Chapter 11, also known as reorganization bankruptcy, allows businesses to restructure debt and continue operations.
A weaker local economy affected Maverick’s operations, according to a Bloomberg report. A string of layoffs in the technology industry also had an impact on the customer base.
Additionally, the company suffered from high operating costs, including rent, which exacerbated financial struggles. S&P Global ratings firm withdrew all ratings on the company in June 2025 “because of a lack of sufficient information.”
Other Casino Closures
At the time of the Chapter 11 filing, four of the company’s cardrooms were shut down. The state barred Maverick from using a centralized surveillance system.
Along with the closure of the two Tukwila properties, the company also posted WARN notices in May for the Crazy Moose Mountlake Casino in Mountlake Terrace, the Silver Dollar Mill Creek Casino in Bothell, and Silver Dollar SeaTac Casino in Seattle. Closures and layoffs at those properties went into effect on July 31.
Maverick now has around 20 gaming properties. The company’s business model included purchasing undervalued properties and instituting operational changes to better secure profits. Those efforts have been a struggle over the last few years.
“Despite successes in turning around many of the gaming assets it has acquired, the company has faced a variety of factors that have severely limited its growth in the last few years, precipitating the current financial distress and inability to address its capital structure that have led to commencement of these Chapter 11 cases,” Chief Restructuring Officer Jeff Seery said in the bankruptcy filing.
Persson had been a regular high-stakes poker player, including a well-publicized heads-up match with Phil Hellmuth. Since the bankruptcy filing, however, he hasn’t appeared in a live-streamed game, according to High Roll Poker. He had been a regular on shows like Bally Live Poker, High Stakes Poker, Hustler Casino Live, and others.
The CEO has been highly critical about how Washington regulates non-tribal gaming operators. At a May 8 meeting of the Washington State Gambling Commission, Persson and other cardroom operators and workers argued that the industry has been over-regulated. They also claimed that tribal operations didn’t face the same degree of scrutiny.
