“Focus” is a word you’ll hear often in conversation with Pinnacle Entertainment CEO Anthony Sanfilippo. It’s his mantra for the company and it’s his operating philosophy. How many companies of Pinnacle’s stature would simply walk away from the application process for a New York State casino because it disrupted the focus of their integration of Ameristar Casinos into Pinnacle?

“We knew we would be, as it turned out, one of 22 companies putting in for four licenses,” Sanfilippo says. “We felt the distraction of going after a license was [less] important to focus on than the integration of Ameristar and Pinnacle Entertainment … there was not a better and higher use of our time than to focus on system integration, people integration and really get the value out of two companies of the same size coming together.”