By The Associated Press

ELIZABETH — The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians plans to retain all 700-plus employees at a southern Indiana casino if state regulators approve its ownership of the casino later this year.

The North Carolina-based tribe also announced Thursday that it had formed EBCI Holdings LLC as Caesars Southern Indiana's ownership group and that its CEO would be R. Scott Barber, the former regional president of Caesars Entertainment, the News and Tribune reported.

EBCI expects the Indiana Gaming Commission to approve its ownership this fall of the casino, located in the Harrison County town of Elizabeth across the Ohio River from Louisville, Kentucky.

EBCI said it will retain the Caesars loyalty program and also intends to retain the casino’s current employees, including general manager Brad Seigel.

“Caesars Southern Indiana is a beautiful facility with a well-established brand and a superb team of hundreds of local employees already in place. We want to keep the same friendly, fun, familiar environment for our guests,” Barber said in a news release.

The casino moved from a riverboat casino to a new, $85 million land-based building in late 2019. That building features 100,000-square-feet (9,290-square-meters) of gambling space.

After it was acquired through a public merger with Eldorado Resorts Inc., Caesars Entertainment was ordered by the Indiana Gaming Commission to sell three of its five casinos in the state. Caesars chose to sell its Elizabeth, Evansville and Hammond properties.

Caesars Entertainment officials announced in December that it had reached an agreement to sell the casino to the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians for $250 million.