This is the year the deck gets reshuffled in the local casino industry.

That's because with the softening economy, the Illinois smoking ban and $900 million in new casinos and amenities that opened in 2007, there's now a lot to be sorted out. Throw in gambling companies' most aggressive push yet to end Missouri's $500 loss limit, and there's action all around.

So far, the arrival of Pinnacle Entertainment's $507 million Lumière Place downtown hasn't made quite the splash that some had hoped. It has expanded the market by a few percentage points in its first few months, and appears to be taking business from everyone else. But Lumière is only the fourth-busiest casino in town, perhaps because all of its competitors have re-armed.

Ameristar Casino in St. Charles has opened its new hotel and a high-end nightclub. The new Casino Queen is up and running, with more investment on the way. And Harrah's in Maryland Heights has spruced up and added a new buffet.

Pinnacle's not done. The company continues work on its River City casino in south St. Louis County, now due to open in the summer of 2009, and it's mulling what to do with the President, the aging St. Louis riverboat with a Coast Guard inspection looming in 2010.

Across the river in Illinois, business is down sharply since the statewide smoking ban took effect Jan. 1, and the regional balance might tip even more to the west if a petition drive led by Ameristar and Pinnacle, and a vote in November, leads to the end of Missouri's $500 loss limit.

Ending the one-of-a-kind loss limit is key, the casinos say, if the St. Louis gambling market hopes to attract the kind of tourists and high-end gamblers who now typically frequent Las Vegas, Atlantic City and the Gulf Coast.

Wooing tourists also is on the mind of the St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission, which has launched new branding and marketing campaigns in recent months designed to attract people who live in smaller cities within a few hours' drive.

The CVC also says it will be easier to lure conventions here, thanks to new work rules it agreed to with its audiovisual unions after a short period of discord in April. The rules end requirements that out-of-town conventions had to hire local workers even if they have their own to do the job, a change the CVC says will cut the cost of coming to St. Louis.

Whether tourist, business or conventioneer, visitors to St. Louis will have a few more hotels to choose from, including the new Four Seasons at Lumière Place. But one of the city's largest hotels, the Reniassance Grand, continues to struggle to make bond payments.

tlogan@post-dispatch.com | 314-340-8291