Casino developers courting St. Tammany Parish voters’ approval of a casino near Slidell on Nov. 13 are counting on an eastern St. Tammany sports complex to help them win their hearts, even as opponents of the proposed casino step up their efforts to defeat it.

Peninsula Pacific Entertainment announced last week that it would pay the full $35 million that it has promised to build the sports complex as soon as ground is broken on the $325 million casino near the foot of the Interstate 10 twin span bridges over Lake Pontchartrain.

And on Wednesday, the Los Angeles-based company sweetened the pot with an early infusion of cash for the project: a $100,000 check handed to St. Tammany Corp., the parish’s economic development agency, during a morning news conference.