Casinos in bristol

These cities are the homes of Virginia’s only two temporary casinos, and they’re both anticipating the opening of permanent casino resorts in The Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Bristol is slated to open next summer, and the Caesars Virginia in Danville will be open by the end of the year. 

The Danville Casino is seeing about , visitors per month, said Chris Albrecht, Caesars Virginia general manager. 

“It’s been really steady since opening,” he said. “We certainly saw a big rush early on, but it’s stayed pretty consistent.”

These visitors are coming from all over, but most of them, especially during weekdays, are regional and local, Albrecht said. But once the permanent resort is open, with its room hotel, he said he expects visitors to come from farther away.

Eleven out of 12 floors of the hotel tower have now been built at the Caesars Virginia construction site, and everything is still on schedule for a later opening, Albrecht said. 

“We’ll have 30 rooms per floor for 10 floors and then 20 rooms on the top floor,” he said. “There will be some suite products on the top floor of the casino, and you’ll have some fantastic views of Danville with floor-to-ceiling windows.”

When completed, it will be the tallest hotel in Danville and offer more rooms than any other lodging option.

The casino floor in the resort will be about 90, square feet, over twice the size of the current 40,square-foot temporary facility, with about 1, slot machines and table games. 

The $ million project will also offer 40, square feet of meeting and convention space, an entertainment venue that will be able to host 2, people, and restaurants and bars.

The temporary Danville facility has about employees, Albrecht said, and over twice that many will be needed for the permanent resort. 

“We’re really going to get rolling on recruiting and hiring [for the permanent resort] in the new year,” he said. “We’re going to be starting hiring events and going to the colleges and universities nearby to do job fairs and speak to the students there.”

Many of the existing employees at the temporary facility, including card dealers, were recruited from the local population, and Caesars is hoping to hire more locals for the permanent casino. 

There were some learning curves in training staff in the early days of the temporary casino, Albrecht said, because Caesars brought an entirely new industry to the Danville area. 

“Now, we have team members in those jobs, earning really good pay, and they’re able to share that. … As we have recruited and needed more staffing, word of mouth has helped us,” he said. “We have people who can give testimonials of the jobs they’re doing, whereas before, no one had ever had these kinds of jobs here.”

Where the money is going

The temporary casinos in Bristol and Danville together brought in over half of the gaming revenue from the state’s casinos in , according to data from the Virginia Lottery through November. December figures will be released mid-January.

Hard Rock Bristol, which opened in July , saw about $ million in gaming revenue in , operating every month of the year. The Danville Casino, operated by Caesars Entertainment, only opened in May but has seen about $ million in revenue since then. 

Virginia’s third casino, a permanent resort in Portsmouth called Rivers Casino that opened in January , brought in almost $ million this year. 

These three casinos together saw $ million in revenue in

Another almost $30 million was generated between the three casinos this year by the state tax on adjusted gaming revenue. This money is divided up for several different uses, but a portion of it — about 6% — goes to the host locality or region of the casino.

The Bristol Casino’s portion of the tax revenue — almost $ million in — will be disbursed to the Regional Improvement Commission, a body created by the General Assembly to determine the best use for the funds. 

The commission will split the revenue between 12 counties and two cities in Southwest Virginia. It’s expected to be put toward education, public safety and transportation.

Danville will not share the tax revenue from its casino with any other localities. The city received about $ million in gaming tax revenue this year from the Danville Casino. 

The city of Danville also receives direct payments as part of an agreement with Caesars Virginia. 

“We get % of the first million [in revenue] and then 6% of the next million, and it goes up from there,” said City Manager Ken Larking.

The city anticipated about $ million coming from both the gaming tax and the direct payments this year, Larking said. 

“Looking at the November numbers, about $8 million in revenue will be collected through the first five months of the fiscal year,” he said. “So, we will likely receive more than budgeted for the year.”

And November reversed three months of declines in Danville Casino revenue, coming to $ million. The facility’s highest month of revenue was July, with almost $ million. 

Larking said that casino revenue can fluctuate based on a number of factors, including the type of play and size of payouts that occur. The city’s tax revenue is based on gross gaming revenue, which is what the casino makes on gambling, he said. 

“It would be wise for us to expect these fluctuations and seasonal impacts,” Larking said. “For budget planning purposes, we should be conservative and get more trend information.”

This tax revenue from the casino revenue will be used according to recommendations made by the Investing in Danville Committee, Larking said, which was established before the city passed a casino referendum in November  

The committee compiled feedback from Danville residents to “prioritize areas that the public thought were important,” he said. 

These include initiatives such as housing, public safety, education and economic development.

Some of these funds have already been used for projects around the city, and the influx of money from the casino has allowed Danville to complete projects faster than expected. 

For example, the police department was moved out of the basement of City Hall this year and into a new building. It’s a much larger space with more robust resources, Larking said, mentioning amenities like a community room, which is important for the department’s community engagement efforts. 

“It’s a much better program now than it was many years ago,” he said. “I’m fairly certain we would not have been able to move our police department into a new headquarters if it weren’t for the casino revenue that came in initially as an upfront payment and ongoing revenue that we’re receiving.”

And the renovation of the city’s White Mill, a former Dan River Mills building that sat empty for decades, will likely be expedited because of the casino revenue stream, Larking said.

Both of these projects, and others in the works, will help improve quality of life in Danville, he said.

“The citizens decided that they wanted to allow a casino to operate in our community, and I believe it’s my responsibility as city manager that we do the best to maximize the resources that have become available because of that decision, and use them for the benefit of our community,” Larking said. 

Most residents are excited about the casino and the effect it will have on Danville, but to any skeptics, Larking recommended focusing on the reason the city was chosen for a casino resort. 

“That is to transform the economy,” he said. “[Danville] was selected because of its high poverty. It was selected because of its lack of economic opportunity for large parts of our community. And so we should be using these funds to make Danville a great place to live.”

Still, he said it’s smart to have conservative expectations about casino revenue.

“We’ve only had a few months of experience of the casino … so we don’t really know what the impact is going to be,” Larking said. “We need to make smart decisions about how we use these funds.”

One of the guiding principles of the Investing in Danville Committee is to use the casino funds for “one-time” investments as much as possible. 

“We won’t be using casino funds to provide core city services,” Larking said, listing things like the police department, parks and recreation, and street maintenance.

Progress in Bristol

The most visible sign that the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Bristol is finally going to open is the behemoth building taking shape that will be a six-floor hotel at the old Bristol Mall property off Gate City Highway.

These days, the site is teeming with construction workers, bulldozers and other heavy equipment, machinery and vehicles that are constantly going in and out of the property. Construction of the room structure remains on schedule and a summer opening is still planned, according to casino spokesperson Andy Poarch. 

Work also continues on the building behind the hotel that will house the casino, though its progress isn’t as noticeable.

“Our team is proud of all the progress we’ve made in , and we look forward to continuing that momentum into ,” said Allie Evangelista, president of the casino complex. “For our guests who visit the property, they can witness the visible signs of our construction activity, which is wonderful for the entire community.”

The new year promises to be a big one for the casino, which has been more than five years in the making. It was late summer when plans were announced to transform the former mall property into a casino resort.

In November , Hard Rock International was announced as the future operator of the Bristol casino.