A topping-off ceremony recently was held for the first phase of the Tohono O’odham Nation’ $450 million Desert Diamond Casino near Glendale, Arizona. Tribal officials said the venue will open by the end of 2024 and offer 900 slot machines, table games, poker room, a retail sportsbook and dining options.
Future plans will include a hotel, conference center, pool, amphitheater and event lawn. The project has created 5,000 construction jobs and once completed will require 1,000 permanent employees, according to Tohono O’odham Gaming Enterprise Chief Executive Officer Mike Bean.
The property will be the Tohono O’odham’s fifth casino and the second Desert Diamond in the West Valley. The first opened in 2015; the tribe’s other properties are located near Tucson in Southern Arizona. The tribe can expand into the metro Phoenix area following a U.S. government decree allowing it to extend its reservation by 10,000 acres following flooding at the Painted Rock Dam in the 1980s.
Tohono O’odham Nation Chairman Verlon Jose said gaming revenue “builds communities. It’s bringing resources to communities that no one ever imagined were out there. The beauty of it is we get to control where and how these things go. And the beauty is it is not our own people being taxed. The revenue comes from everyone who walks into and enjoys our facility.” He noted gaming revenue could be used to improve infrastructure on the reservation where there still are hundreds of miles of roads in “deplorable conditions.”
This summer, the Tohono O’Odham Nation opened the Gila River Resorts & Casinos Santan Mountain facility, the first to be built under the tribe’s updated gaming compact, allowing tribes to offer sports betting, expanded offerings and new casinos. The tribe has been gaining more visibility by acquiring naming rights to the former Gila River Arena in Glendale and sponsoring NASCAR events at Phoenix Raceway, according to the Phoenix Business Journal.
