The property's operating company filed bankruptcy in 1997, and Arizona Charlie's was purchased the following year by businessman Carl Icahn, who owned it for the next decade.

In the 1960s, Ernest Becker III and his family built the Charleston Heights shopping center, located along Decatur Boulevard.

[3] It is named after a distant relative of the Becker family, Arizona Charlie (1860–1932), who once performed in western shows with Buffalo Bill.

[4][5] Area residents had protested the construction of Arizona Charlie's, arguing that it would lead to increased crime and traffic in the neighborhood.

[1] The property's operating company, Arizona Charlie's Inc., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1997, after investing in a failed riverboat casino project in Missouri.

By May 1998, Icahn and Station had both launched efforts to take over Arizona Charlie's, and the Becker family was fighting in bankruptcy court to maintain control of the property.

[15][16] Bruce Becker hoped to receive a $92 million loan to keep the hotel-casino and to expand it,[15] but this plan fell through in July 1998; the lender declined to provide the funds after closely examining the property's financial prospects.

[18][19] Becker reached a deal with Icahn to buy back the hotel-casino by the end of 1999,[18] and Station also made further proposals to purchase it, but neither effort panned out.

[24] In 2008,[25] Icahn sold the company and its properties to Whitehall Street Real Estate Funds, an affiliate of Goldman Sachs.

[28] In 2021, the property's original roadside sign, which includes an image of Arizona Charlie, was donated to the city's Neon Museum for preservation.