Eric Persson Says He Will Buy Back Eight Maverick Card Rooms, Keeping 850 Washington Jobs

A week after closure notices put eight Washington card rooms on course to shut on 30 November, Maverick Gaming's founder says he is buying them out of the bankruptcy and that the deal will close within three weeks. No buyer entity, price or court filing for the sale has been made public, and a new owner needs the state's gambling licence.

• Eric Persson, the founder of Maverick Gaming, told KIRO Newsradio that he is buying back the eight card rooms that Maverick Washington LLC said on 28 September would close on 30 November, and that the purchase should close in about three weeks
• The eight are Crazy Moose Casino in Pasco, Coyote Bobs Casino in Kennewick, Macau Casino, Palace Casino and Chips Casino in Lakewood, Great American Casino in Everett, All Star Casino in Silverdale and Casino Caribbean in Yakima, with about 850 workers between them
• Persson says the buildings will not close and that staff will be terminated by the old company and rehired by the new one; the buyer entity and price have not been disclosed, and no sale filing for these card rooms was visible in the public docket records we could search
• Persson's Maverick Gaming LLC bought four other Washington card rooms out of the same Chapter 11 case for $28 million in 2025, in a sale the court treated as one to an insider and later upheld against a Teamsters challenge
• Figures filed with the Washington State Gambling Commission show the eight rooms took about $61.8 million in total revenue in their 2024 financial years and lost about $2.2 million between them

Eight Notices, Now One Buyer

The card rooms named in the closure notices that Maverick Washington LLC filed with the state's Employment Security Department on 28 September will stay open under new ownership, according to Persson. "From a customer standpoint, you know nothing changes. The building never closes," he told KIRO Newsradio, MyNorthwest reported on Monday. "The employees are being terminated as it relates to the old company and being rehired by the new company, but the properties themselves will stay open." He said the purchase is set to close in about three weeks. "I'm trying to make sure these properties stay open, these jobs stay in place," he added.

That changes the picture we reported on Friday. The notices then carried a caveat that a change of owner or operator through the bankruptcy could stop or delay any closure, and a Pasco councilman said Crazy Moose was changing hands, but no buyer had been named. Persson has now claimed all eight. The two Tukwila card rooms already due to close on 1 November, Riverside Casino and Great American Casino, have separate buyers, according to MyNorthwest, which did not name them.

What Is Not Yet Public

The card rooms are run by Maverick Washington LLC, one of the debtors in the Chapter 11 case of RunItOneTime LLC, the parent formerly known as Maverick Gaming, before Judge Alfredo R. Pérez of the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas (Case No. 25-90191). A sale of estate assets outside the ordinary course of business ordinarily needs the court's approval. Persson did not name the entity that is buying or the price, and in the federal court records available through CourtListener, which run to 25 September, we found no motion or order for the sale of these eight card rooms.

Persson describes today's Maverick Gaming as separate from the bankrupt company. According to MyNorthwest, he transferred the assets to his lenders in July 2025, who took the operating companies into Chapter 11, and he later bought back the Maverick Gaming name, four Washington card rooms in Kirkland, Mountlake Terrace and Lakewood, and a manufacturing business.

The state licence is the other open question. Washington's gambling licences cannot be sold or transferred, and if a business is sold without the Washington State Gambling Commission's approval its licence is void and gambling must stop, according to the commission's guidance. For house-banked card rooms, the commission says it will not approve contingency sales and that "the sale must close prior to us issuing a license". How it will license a new owner without a gap in operations has not been made public. The commission next meets on 15 October in Olympia; its materials are due a week before.

The Last Time Persson Bought From the Estate

The 2025 sale is the template. Maverick Gaming LLC, managed by Persson, was the successful bidder for the "PokerCo" assets, the Aces Poker card rooms in Lakewood and Mountlake Terrace and Casino Caribbean and Caribbean Cardroom in Kirkland, with a bid of $28 million in cash and non-cash consideration, and the court approved the sale on 24 September 2025, according to a memorandum opinion by Judge Pérez. Because Persson was the debtors' pre-petition chief executive and majority shareholder, the sale was treated as one to an insider; the debtors said they screened him from the process, that he had independent counsel, and that a special committee of the board and the unsecured creditors' committee oversaw it.

The sale order found that the buyer was not a successor to the debtors and "shall not be deemed to be a 'successor employer'". Teamsters Local 117, which represented about 220 of the roughly 350 workers at those card rooms under a collective agreement running to February 2027, asked the court to reconsider. Judge Pérez refused on 26 January 2026. Teamsters Local 117 also represents some workers at Chips Casino, one of the eight now being bought, according to KOMO News' report of the closure notice.

The Same Insider Questions Will Be Asked Again

A founder buying assets back from the estate of the company he once ran is lawful, but it is the kind of sale a bankruptcy court examines most closely, because the buyer knows the business better than any rival bidder. The 2025 process answered that with screening, a special committee and creditor oversight, and the court accepted it. The usual test of whether an insider is paying a fair price is whether other bidders had a chance to beat him, and a deal that closes within three weeks of being announced on the radio will need a record showing how that happened. If the sale follows the 2025 pattern, the same safeguards will be cited and the same scrutiny can be expected from creditors and the union.

"Terminated and Rehired" Is the Point of the Structure

Persson's description of how the jobs survive, ended by the old company and offered by the new one, matches the free-and-clear sale the court approved in 2025, in which the buyer took the card rooms without taking on the debtors' obligations as an employer. For about 850 workers that is a better outcome than a closure on 30 November. For those covered by a union contract, it may mean the jobs survive while the terms that came with them have to be negotiated again. The sale documents, once filed, will show which.

Without the Old Debt, Thin Margins May Be Enough

The commission's summary of card room accounts for financial years ending in 2024 shows why Maverick wanted out. Great American in Everett earned about $1.9 million and Chips about $1 million, Coyote Bobs and All Star made smaller profits, and Crazy Moose in Pasco, Casino Caribbean in Yakima, Macau in Lakewood and the Lakewood room listed as Maverick Casino, formerly Palace Casino, lost money; the commission notes that net figures may include items such as goodwill impairment. RunItOneTime owed $305 million on a secured term loan when it filed, according to Law360. A buyer taking the card rooms without that debt starts from a different cost base, though not a different market. Labour costs and the commission's refusal of Maverick's surveillance petition are still there, and so are tribal casinos with the state's only legal sports betting, an exclusivity Washington has defended even against federally regulated newcomers by winning an injunction against Kalshi.

Persson's statement is the first sign that all eight card rooms may keep trading past 30 November. Until a sale order and a licence decision are public, it remains a plan announced on the radio.