Gaming & Leisure Properties announced on October 1 that it had acquired Sunland Park Racetrack & Casino’s real estate. The real estate investment trust (REIT) paid $183.8 million for the facility.
Sited near the Texas/New Mexico border, Sunland Park has 738 slots machines and 12 electronic table games on a 25,000-square-foot casino floor. The track sits on 157 acres and seats 733 at its one-mile racing oval. The racino offers 55 racing days and comes with 1,300 parking spaces.
Additional assets of Sunland Park include a ballroom that can hold 600 attendees, a 78-room hotel, and a simulcast area with racebook. Also included is what GLPI described as “underutilized acreage that provides significant expansion and performance uplift opportunities.”
The racino is only a few miles from El Paso, Texas, which GLPI highlighted as “under-penetrated” with “high population and income growth geography,” an area where incomes accelerated faster than the rest of the United States over the past five years.
The Las Cruces, New Mexico, market is also served by Sunland Park. GLPI hailed New Mexico as “a stable gaming environment” in which the racino was well-situated to perform.
Underlining its point, GLPI noted, “New Mexico provides regulatory protections through a limited number of gaming licenses, limited gaming positions, gaming establishment concentration protections, and a tribal gaming compact that extends through 2037.” It added that the likelihood of gaming legislation passing in neighboring Texas in the near future “appears low.”
In New Mexico, GLPI elaborated, are 21 tribal casinos and five of a possible six private-sector casinos. No commercial gambling is permissible within 80 miles of a racino such as Sunland Park.
Sunland Park will be operated by Strategic Gaming Management, which runs three casinos in Nevada and South Dakota in association with the REIT. Other GLPI-owned Strategic-run casinos are: Baldini’s in Sparks, Nevada, and Deadwood Mountain Grand and Silverado Franklin, both in Deadwood, South Dakota. Strategic will pay $15 million per year in rent, escalating at two percent per year. The initial lease runs for 25 years, with two 10-year extensions possible.
The racino’s nearest competitor, the tribal Speaking Rock casino, is 20 miles away, on the far side of El Paso. The nearest proposed private-sector casino in Texas would be 550 miles distant.
With the exception of COVID-plagued 2020, New Mexico non-tribal casino revenue has exceeded $225 million a year, peaking at $271 million in 2023. In 2024, Land of Enchantment commercial casinos grossed $261 million, their third-highest tally.
In a prepared statement, GLPI CEO Peter Carlino said, “Through our acquisition of Sunland Park, we are again diversifying our property portfolio, while again supporting the growth strategy of an existing tenant, as we deepen our relationship with Strategic Gaming, a dynamic and growing gaming operator. This accretive transaction further strengthens GLPI’s reputation as the gaming landlord of choice.”
The Sunland Park purchase is expected to close on October 15. It will bring the GLPI portfolio of properties to a total of 69.
