Monday was a big day in the US regional casino sector, with three-way deal-making involving Penn National Gaming (PNG), Pinnacle Entertainment and Boyd Gaming.

The day’s major announcement came as PNG confirmed it had reached a $2.8b cash-and-shares deal to acquire Pinnacle, cementing PNG’s status as the nation’s biggest regional gaming operator. Rumors of such a deal had been circulating since October.

Pinnacle owns and operates 16 gaming venues, but PNG will only be absorbing 12 of these properties. PNG reached a separate all-cash $575m deal that will see Boyd Gaming assume control over four Pinnacle venues: Ameristar St. Charles (Missouri); Ameristar Kansas City (Missouri); Belterra Casino Resort in Florence, Indiana; and Belterra Park in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The enlarged PNG will operate a total of 41 gaming venues in North America, which offer a combined 53k slot machines, 1,300 gaming tables, 8,300 hotel rooms and roughly 35k employees. The deal is expected to be complete sometime in H2 2018, subject to approval by regulators in the states in which the companies operate.