A top executive who helped shepherd the development of the Happy Valley Casino and led its operations has departed his position less than two months after the College Township venue’s opening.
Eric Pearson is no longer general manager of the category 4 casino casino located at the Nittany Mall in what majority owner Saratoga Casino Holdings described on Monday as a planned move.
The company credited Pearson as “an integral part of the planning and opening of Happy Valley Casino.”
“From the outset, the plan included Eric transitioning to new opportunities following the successful launch of the property,” Saratoga wrote in a statement to StateCollege.com. “His extensive experience and knowledge of opening casino operations were invaluable in helping establish a strong foundation for Happy Valley Casino.”
Pearson declined to comment when reached by phone on Monday.
Saratoga did not respond to a question about when Pearson left the position. His LinkedIn account lists his end date with Happy Valley Casino as June 2026.
Assistant General Manager Jennifer Johnson is currently overseeing day-to-day operations. The casino is awaiting final licensing approval from the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board for its new general manager and plans to share more information when the process is complete, according to Saratoga.
PGCB spokesman Douglas Harbach said that if an individual is currently undergoing background investigation for licensure, that information cannot be disclosed until the investigatory work is complete.
A casino industry veteran, Pearson had been with the project virtually since its inception, serving as its public face locally as it went through planning, licensure, legal challenges from a competing gaming company, construction and opening.
Investor and Penn State alumnus Ira Lubert began discussing the possibility of a State College area casino with Pearson, who was previously CEO of Valley Forge Casino Resort under Lubert’s ownership as early as 2017, Pearson said in April.
“I’d never been to State College before. Obviously, now I’ve spent significant time here and it’s very tied to the community, but when he initially kicked the idea across, I did some initial demographic work and I was like, I don’t know,” Pearson said. “He’s like, ‘no, you got to go see it.’ And it wasn’t until he sort of made me come out and spend some time here in State College that I got to really understand just how underserved the whole Centre County region is for entertainment for folks in that sort of 40 to 75-plus demographic.
“It was really spending time here and seeing that that brought me to where his thinking was on it. Like this really can work. This is a massively underserved market, and I think it’s overlooked by a lot of national developers, because they did what I did. They took an initial snapshot view of the top-line demographics and then thought there is maybe a better place for us to go. But I think that people that really know Centre County and the State College region understand that there is a lot of strength in the market here that is easy to overlook if you don’t spend time.”
Lubert won an auction for a category 4 “mini-casino” license with a $10 million bid in August 2020 and soon after identified Pearson as general manager in regulatory applications.
Amid a yearslong legal challenge from competing bidder Stadium Casino, Lubert’s SC Gaming slowly moved forward with the Happy Valley Casino, first partnering with Bally’s for development and management and then with New York-based Saratoga Casino holdings, which became majority owner in January.
Happy Valley Casino opened in late April with 600 slot machines, 30 table games, a full-service restaurant, bar and quick-serve food and beverage outlet. It can add up to 150 more slots and, after a year, 10 more table games.
