ST. LOUIS — There's a new plan for the ailing President Casino.

It will stay put.

Pinnacle Entertainment, which owns the money-losing casino on Laclede's Landing, said Thursday that it plans to refurbish the aging Admiral riverboat, on which the casino sits, and keep it docked downtown. The move would appear to prevent a high-stakes scrum for the President's valuable gaming license.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission Thursday, Pinnacle said it now plans to repair the boat prior to a hull inspection due next July, and that the repairs should be enough to keep the Admiral in service.

The filing was short on details on how Pinnacle will do this, and a spokesman declined requests for further comment.

But it's likely to be a complicated, expensive process for the Las Vegas-based gaming company. And it's a significant reversal from earlier plans. Yet if Pinnacle wants to keep the President's valuable license — one of just 13 allowed in Missouri — it's not clear that they had any other choice.

Since 2006, when they bought the President for $45 million as part of their plans to build Lumière Place, company officials have said time and again that fixing the hull was not feasible.

For a time last year, it floated a plan to move the boat north, to the Chain of Rocks Bridge. But state gaming regulators rebuffed that plan. As recently as July, Pinnacle said it wanted to replace the Admiral with a newer riverboat it owns, not repair it.

But in August, the Missouri Gaming Commission ruled that any move — even on to a new boat at the same site — would require Pinnacle to re-apply for its license, something that would likely invite competing applications from would-be casino builders in Kansas City, Cape Girardeau and north St. Louis County. In its ruling, the commission rejected "all plans … regarding the repair, relocation or replacement of the President."

Pinnacle appealed, charging that the Gaming Commission had all but stripped its license — which expires in 2011 — without due process. And earlier this month, attorneys for the state opened a door to repairs, saying the condition of the hull is not for them to decide.

"That is between Pinnacle and (the inspectors)," the lawyers wrote in a court filing in the case, which is still being considered in state appeals court. "The Commission is not attempting to prohibit Pinnacle from repairing its hull."

So now, repair is what Pinnacle says it will do — though it still may need the Gaming Commission's approval. The commission declined comment because of the lawsuit.

The repairs, if they happen, would prolong the life of the region's weakest casino.

The President lost $1.25 million in the first nine months of the year, according to Pinnacle. It has laid off staff, reduced hours and been forced to close several times due to high water on the Mississippi.

And that has backers of other potential casino projects saying that saving the President may not be the wisest choice. Ed Griesedieck, the attorney for a group that wants to build a casino just north of Chain of Rocks in north St. Louis County, says his location would prove much more lucrative for the state than the President's downtown site.

"It's a much more attractive location for the state to have one of its licenses," he said. "The Gaming Commission has an obligation, we believe, to provide and distribute the licenses to the locations which best serve the state and the gaming public."

But right now, it's the President that has the license. And Pinnacle says it intends to keep it. In a fixed-up boat. Floating in downtown St. Louis.