In South America and a group of Argentinean businessmen are reportedly hoping to raise around $60 million in order to launch an eight-story riverboat casino into the Parana River.

According to a report from G3Newswire, the 52-cabin vessel named after local commercial shipping pioneer Nicolas Mihanovich was built in 1962 and had earlier served as a ferry transporting passengers across the River Plate between Buenos Aires and the Uruguayan port of Colonia. The source detailed that the ship was moved some 900 miles up the Parana River to the Argentinean city of Puerto Iguazu in 2013 as part of a plan that was to have seen it transformed into a floating casino hotel.

Sustained suspension:

However, this scheme reportedly failed to materialize and left the ageing vessel mothballed along the banks of the tributary Iguazu River some ten miles from its intended moorings near a new bridge being built to span the Parana River and connect the Brazilian city of Foz do Iguazu with the Paraguayan community of Ciudad del Este.

Recent revival:

Now a new Argentinean entity known as Commercial Tourism Company is reportedly hoping to resurrect the long-stalled project and bring casino gambling to a region that is already popular with tourists from around the world owing to its proximity to the planet’s largest waterfall, the Iguazu Falls. The tri-border zone along the junction of Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil was purportedly designated as an area of special interest in 2015 and this subsequently resulted in the governments of the three nations throwing their considerable weight behind the riverboat project.

Paraguay plan:

Paraguayan lawyer Magno Alvarez is reportedly advising the new owners of the Nicolas Mihanovich and he divulged that Commercial Tourism Company is now hoping to moor the vessel off of Ciudad del Este before opening its four gaming rooms complete with a range of slots and gaming tables. He purportedly explained that the 295-foot ship could moreover one day offer a solarium, a sauna, a gym and a jacuzzi as well as multiple swimming pools to serve as a prominent star in the local tourism market.

Alvarez reportedly stated…

“Without a doubt, it is an unprecedented attraction in the ‘Triple Border’ area from Paraguay to the world.”

Licensing likelihood:

The President for Paraguay’s Provincial Institute of Lottery and Casinos, Hector Rojas Decut, reportedly proclaimed that his body is open to the idea of granting a gambling license to a new-look Nicolas Mihanovich so long as ‘all the investments for it to function as a hotel, casino and restaurant are fulfilled’. The civil servant purportedly furthermore declared that this could have happened in 2013 but that the vessel’s previous Argentinean owner had ‘never fulfilled’ these obligations.