ROLAND, OKLA. - Construction of a Cherokee Casino & Hotel - another tribal gambling destination along the Arkansas border - has begun.
Cherokee Nation Entertainment is building a new casino hotel off Interstate 40 about 5 miles from the Oklahoma-Arkansas border. About 100 people, including tribal officers and officials from the cities and chambers of commerce of Roland, Muldrow and Fort Smith, attended a ceremony Tuesday at the Cherokee complex.
The new facility will cost about $80 million to build and will employ more than 400 workers. It will replace the tribe’s 50,000-square-foot Cherokee Casino Roland operation, which employs 320.
Plans call for the new casino to be open by the end of May 2015, with the hotel opening by the end of September 2015. Once the new facility is completed, the old casino will be demolished. The Roland operation is where the tribe opened its first Cherokee Nation Bingo Outpost in 1990.
Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Bill John Baker said the Roland facility needed an upgrade and a design that allows for further growth. He said all the tribe’s business operations exist to create jobs and opportunity for the Cherokee people, and he hopes to report 100 percent of the new positions are filled by Cherokees when the new facility opens.
The plan calls for a six story, 120-room hotel and a 170,000-square-foot facility with 850 electronic games, table games and a private high limit poker room. There will be convention space, and dining options will include a cafe and a Las Vegas-style buffet. There also will be an entertainment venue.
The existing Roland casino has 600 electronic gambling machines, eight poker tables, seven table games and a diner.
This will be the second Cherokee Nation casino-hotel on the Arkansas border. In West Siloam Springs, the Cherokee Nation operates a Cherokee Casino & Hotel, which was upgraded in 2010 and now has 1,500 electronic games, table games and a 140-room hotel.
Cherokee Nation Entertainment is the wholly owned gambling, hospitality, retail and tourism arm of the Cherokee Nation. It runs the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Tulsa; seven Cherokee Casinos, including a horse-racing track; four hotels; two golf courses; and other retail outlets. It employs about 3,500 people across all of its operations. In fiscal year 2012, Cherokee Nation Entertainment reported revenue of $532 million.
Arkansas has no tribal owned gambling, but betting is allowed on greyhound races at Southland Park in West Memphis and thoroughbred races at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs. State law allows gambling on electronic devices at the racetracks that are similar to devices offered at out-of-state casinos.
Five of Oklahoma’s Indian tribes, including the Cherokee Nation, have large-scale casino operations near the Arkansas state line. All of the facilities have been upgraded, adding new or expanded casino floors and nongambling amenities like hotels, restaurants and spas in recent years.
About 10 miles as the crow flies, on the south side of the Arkansas River from the new Cherokee project, the Choctaw Nation has been busy. It expanded and enhanced the gambling floor at its Pocola, Okla., casino, southwest of Fort Smith on Interstate 540 in 2012 and added a 118-room hotel in 2013. Today, it has 2,200 slot games, a 12-table gambling pit and a high-limit area, and plans to add off-track racing soon. It added a new off-track betting room earlier this month.
Marc Anthony Fusaro, associate professor of economics at the College of Business at Arkansas Tech University at Russellville, has said the new hotel will create the first direct competition seen in the segment along the Arkansas border. He predicted the tribes will battle for customers through promotions and deals on food, entertainment and hotel rooms.
Cherokee Nation Tribal Councilor Janelle Fullbright said the new Roland operation will be competitive with other gambling operations in the region.
“We’re going to get our piece of the pie,” she said.
Nationally, revenue at Indian-owned casinos rose 2 percent in 2012 to $28.1 billion, an all-time high, according to Casino City’s Indian Gaming Industry Report released in late March. Oklahoma came in seventh nationally in revenue growth among Indian casinos, up 6.6 percent to $3.7 billion in 2012. The state ranked second by total revenue behind California, which took in $6.96 billion in 2012.
Nongambling revenue at tribal casinos nationally was up nearly 3 percent to about $3.4 billion in 2012, the second consecutive year for growth. Oklahoma’s tribal casinos saw nongambling revenue rise to $510 million, a 3.4 percent increase when compared with 2011. Nongambling revenue for the state has grown since 2009.
Business, Pages 28 on 04/30/2014