Reside! On line casino & Resort Louisiana Hoists Brand in Bossier Metropolis
On Wednesday, The Cordish Corporations raised its purple Reside! brand atop the resort that shall be often called Reside! On line casino & Resort Louisiana when it opens subsequent 12 months.
Building employees carry the Reside! signal above the forthcoming Reside! On line casino & Resort Louisiana. The $270 million overhaul of the previous Diamond Jacks property is anticipated to open early subsequent 12 months in Bossier Metropolis. (Picture: The Cordish Corporations)
Slated to open within the first quarter of 2025, Cordish is investing $270 million to redevelop the previous Diamond Jacks riverboat on line casino and resort in Bossier Metropolis right into a Reside!-branded vacation spot. Joshua Robinson, vice chairman of selling for the forthcoming resort in Northwest Louisiana, says the location of the brand atop the 11-story resort marks the “starting of a brand new period.”
Placing the signal on the constructing is like placing the icing on the cake,” Robinson mentioned. “It’s an thrilling day. Persons are on the brink of get ‘reside.’”
Cordish’s funding in Louisiana will enhance the corporate’s gaming portfolio to a few states, together with Maryland and Pennsylvania, the place it operates Reside! On line casino & Resort Maryland close to Baltimore-Washington Worldwide Airport, Reside! On line casino & Resort Philadelphia within the metropolis’s Stadium District, and Reside! On line casino Pittsburgh within the metropolis’s suburb of Westmoreland.
Diamond within the Tough
Diamond Jacks was completely closed through the pandemic. The riverboat’s proprietor on the time — Peninsula Pacific Leisure — sought to relocate its state-issued gaming license from Bossier Metropolis to the north of New Orleans in Slidell, however native voters there pushed again.
Citing claims of an oversaturated market, P2E opted to fold on Louisiana and bought the Diamond Jacks boat and resort to Basis Gaming in December 2022. The Mississippi-based riverboat gaming operator initially deliberate to spend $200 million to finish a much-needed renovation of the deteriorating on line casino and resort, however simply 4 months later, Basis agreed to promote the advanced to Cordish.
Regardless of no expertise in redeveloping distressed casinos, Cordish sought a possibility to develop its gaming operations south. Cordish pledged a richer makeover than Basis, highlighted by a brand new 47K-square-foot brick-and-mortar on line casino.
Reside! On line casino & Resort Louisiana will embody 1,000 slot machines and digital desk gaming positions, 40 reside seller desk video games, and a sportsbook. The resort lodging are being renovated to “upscale.”
The vacation spot will moreover provide a 31-site RV park with concrete pads and full hookups, 25K sq. toes of multipurpose occasion house, and a parking storage. The resort’s outside pool in entrance of the resort entrance can be being renovated.
Reside! On line casino will return the Bossier Metropolis/Shreveport gaming market to 6 properties together with Boomtown, Bally’s, Horseshoe, Sam’s City, and Margaritaville.
‘Transformative’ Improvement
Cordish is promising lofty financial advantages. Together with 750 forthcoming everlasting jobs, the corporate expects to ship Bossier Metropolis $35 million in gaming taxes through the on line casino’s first 5 years in operation, and $168 million in state gaming taxes.
Cordish says its 750 workforce members will obtain an estimated $34 million a 12 months in pay and ideas, or about $45,333 per worker. Based on the US Census Bureau, the median family earnings in Bossier Metropolis is $54,100, that means a pair working on the on line casino would make significantly greater than the typical family.
Cordish has additionally pledged to contract native, minority, ladies, and veteran-owned companies.
