Little Six Casino will open at its new location at the original site of Little Six Bingo on Friday, Dec. 14. It was there that the Shakopee Mdewakanton Dakota Community, under the leadership of the first tribal chairman, Norman M. Crooks, first introduced high-stakes bingo to Minnesota Oct. 16, 1982.

Now, 25 years later, the original Little Six Bingo site just across the parking lot from the existing tipi structure will be home to the new Little Six Casino.

The 13 trailers that were pieced together during the early days of the Little Six Casino were intended as temporary. The current Little Six Casino building, which opened in 1989, has now come to the end of its life cycle and needed to be replaced.

"We wanted to provide Little Six Casino guests with a better gaming experience than the current facility could offer, and we felt to accomplish that we needed a different building," said tribal Chairman Stanley R. Crooks. "We're just moving the operation back to its original site, a place which has great significance to our community, as the birthplace of a new life for our people."

"We will maintain the small casino feel which our guests preferred through the years. The atmosphere in the new Little Six Casino will be more comfortable for our guests with improved air quality, wider aisles, higher ceilings, a circular layout, and easier parking. We'll have the same slot machines, the same blackjack tables, and the same staff our guests came to know and love," said Tom Polusny, tribal gaming enterprise vice president and Little Six Casino general manager.

The current Little Six Casino will close at midnight on Sunday. The new Little Six Casino will then open to the public.