Tropicana Entertainment Incorporated is getting out of the casino business after signing a definitive agreement that is to see it sell the majority of its properties including the 2,100-room Tropicana Casino and Resort Atlantic City to rival operator Gaming and Leisure Properties Incorporated.

Las Vegas-based Tropicana Entertainment Incorporated stated that the deal is expected to close later this year and will involve Gaming and Leisure Properties Incorporated paying around $1.21 billion for seven of its eight venues with its Tropicana Aruba Resort and Casino venue in the Caribbean being offloaded separately ‘as a condition to closing’.

In addition to New Jersey and Aruba, Tropicana Entertainment Incorporated is responsible for casinos in Nevada, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi and Missouri and declared that the agreement is to moreover involve Eldorado Resorts Incorporated paying about $640 million for the rights to run the offloaded venues for the next 15 years.

According to a Monday report from the New York Post newspaper, billionaire property magnate Carl Icahn has held a majority stake in Tropicana Entertainment Incorporated since 2008 when the firm was in the midst of bankruptcy proceedings. His Icahn Enterprises vehicle then helped to negotiate a $200 million deal two years later that saw the operator successfully emerge from the threat of insolvency.

The newspaper reported that 82-year-old Icahn had also owned the former Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort in Atlantic City until he sold the 2,000-room property for $50 million in March of 2017. New owner Hard Rock International is now hoping to re-open this Boardwalk property later in the year as its re-branded Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Atlantic City.

Tony Rodio, President and Chief Executive Officer for Tropicana Entertainment Incorporated, used an official press release to proclaim that he was ‘incredibly proud’ of what his company had accomplished since emerging from bankruptcy. He furthermore thanked Icahn, Icahn Enterprises and his fellow executives for ‘their personal support, financial commitment and the confidence’ they had shown in the company’s management team.

“This tremendous financial turnaround would not have been possible without it,” read the statement from Rodio. “Through their commitment and investment, Tropicana Entertainment Incorporated has been able to construct new casinos in Evansville, Indiana, and Greenville, Mississippi, and substantially renovate our other properties including, most significantly, the Tropicana Casino and Resort Atlantic City, creating new employment opportunities and hundreds of temporary construction jobs in the process since our operations began in 2010.”

Tropicana Entertainment Incorporated additionally detailed that the $1.85 billion deal that will see it exit the casino industry is not subject to any financing conditions but is dependent upon the receipt of ‘required gaming approvals’ as well as ‘other closing conditions’ such as those contained in the Hart-Scott-Rodino Anti-Trust Improvements Act of 1976.