Phil Ruffin Announces Opening Date for Gilley’s Casino Park City in Kansas
Posted on: August 20, 2025, 08:15h.
Last updated on: August 20, 2025, 08:15h.
- Phil Ruffin is opening a casino in Kansas
- The facility will offer slot-like historical horse racing terminals
- The casino is named after country music singer Mickey Gilley, who pioneered the Gilley’s honky-tonk
Billionaire Phil Ruffin is bringing the famed Gilley’s honky-tonk brand to Kansas by way of Park City, just north of Wichita.
Gilley’s Casino Park City will open on Dec. 15, a little more than two years after the Kansas Racing and Gaming Commission signed off on allowing Ruffin to redevelop the Wichita Greyhound Park, which has sat shuttered since October 2007, into a hotel and casino with slot-like historical horse racing machines (HHRs).
Kansas lawmakers authorized HHR terminals in 2022, legislation that additionally authorized mobile sports betting and at the state’s four commercial casinos and tribal casinos. The statute created only one HHR license, designated for the Wichita area.
Ruffin, who bought the closed 82-acre Wichita Greyhound Park property from Sedgwick County in 2018 for $1.6 million, was the sole bidder for the HHR opportunity after a bid from Boyd Gaming was disqualified. Boyd was dismissed because the company operates the Kansas Star Casino in Mulvane, south of Wichita.
Gilley’s Opening
Ruffin’s presentation to the state included a full redevelopment of the existing building at the Wichita Greyhound Park into an HHR gaming facility. A public park, along with bus and RV parking, was part of the phase one plan.
Future phases of the project, expected to cost more than $100 million, include a 98-room hotel, an outdoor amphitheater, and a dance hall and saloon. Ruffin initially planned to call the destination the Golden Circle, but he’s since decided to brand the destination Gilley’s.
The original Gilley’s Club was in Pasadena, Texas. Co-opened by country music singer Mickey Gilley, the football-sized facility was known as the “world’s biggest honky-tonk.” The club’s popularity soared after it played a starring role in John Travolta’s 1980 film, Urban Cowboy.
The movie revived Gilley’s career, with his cover of “Stand by Me” in the flick going to No. 1 on the U.S. Country chart.
I have been a personal friend of Mickey Gilley and family since the early 1990s, and it led me to bring the Gilley’s experience to Las Vegas,” Ruffin said. “Now, with his wife, Cindy Gilley, leading the company, I’m bringing the iconic brand to Park City, Kansas — guaranteed to be the best entertainment destination in the region.”
Ruffin acquired licensing rights to the Gilley’s name and brought the honky-tonk to his New Frontier Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip in 1998. After buying Treasure Island in 2009, he brought Gilley’s with him.
Gilley’s Casino Details
Phase one of Gilley’s Casino Kansas includes a gaming floor with approximately 1,000 HHR machines. The machines look, sound, and operate like Las Vegas slots, but differ in that they determine wins and losses based on previously run horse races.
Ruffin, raised in Wichita, has said it’s been his career dream to open a casino in his native Kansas. His fortune began by pioneering self-serve gasoline stations in Kansas, with his chain growing to more than 60 gas stations by the early 1980s.
He used some of his proceeds to open his first hotel — the Marriott Wichita. He then ventured into oil distribution and founded one of the country’s largest manufacturers of hand trucks.
Ruffin’s first casino venture came by way of the Bahamas. When he sold the Crystal Palace, he used his profits to buy the New Frontier, and later, Treasure Island. Ruffin, close friends with President Donald Trump, owns 50% of the non-gaming Trump International Hotel on the Strip.
At 90 years old, Ruffin is completing his lifelong dream of running a casino outfit in Wichita.
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