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The Missouri Gaming Commission voted 4-1 on Wednesday to approve the sale of the downtown ºüÀêÊÓƵ casino Lumière Place to a subsidiary of the Pennsylvania company Gaming and Leisure Properties Inc. The company is buying only the real estate.

The current operator, Eldorado Resorts Inc., will continue to own the Lumière business and run the casino.

Gaming and Leisure Properties, or GLPI, which spun off from casino operator Penn National Gaming Inc. in 2013, leases casino properties to operating companies.

Missouri Gaming Commissioners tried to avoid this outcome two years ago.

Two casino mergers were consolidating ownership in the region and were poised to make one casino real estate company — GLPI — the landlord for all six properties in the region.

That year, 2018, Eldorado was finalizing its $1.85 billion deal for former Lumière owner Tropicana Entertainment. As part of that deal, GLPI was going to pay $1.21 billion for substantially all of Tropicana’s real estate and lease it to Reno, Nevada-based Eldorado.

But Missouri regulators balked, and to close the deal, GLPI entered into an agreement with the gaming commission to lend Eldorado $246 million to help Eldorado purchase Lumière Place’s real estate.

Around the same time, Penn National closed on its purchase of Pinnacle Entertainment Inc., adding River City Casino in Lemay to a local portfolio that also includes Hollywood Casino in Maryland Heights and Casino Argosy Alton.

But GLPI, which already owned the Casino Queen in East ºüÀêÊÓƵ along with Ameristar St. Charles, also owns all of Penn National’s real estate.

Gaming Commissioner Dan Finney, who sat on the commission in 2018, and opposed GLPI owning all the ºüÀêÊÓƵ casino real estate then, was the lone dissenting vote on Wednesday. He said he still had “very real concerns.â€�

“The commission I was with before, all the commissioners were concerned about giving GLPI a monopoly,� he said.

But gaming commission Chairman Mike Leara said he wasn’t concerned about GLPI owning all the properties.

GLPI, a real estate investment trust, is a passive real estate organization, he noted.

The four commissioners who approved the sale on Wednesday, including Leara, were all appointed by Gov. Mike Parson after the commission’s 2018 decision requiring GLPI to sell.

Eldorado supported the GLPI transaction as part of its 2018 purchase.

Some of the casinos will still have different operators that lease the properties from GLPI.

Three area casinos are operated by Penn National.