Cripple Creek, one of Colorado’s three casino towns, is pinning its hopes for a revival of fortunes on the legalization of sports betting and 400 additional hotel rooms.
The town has had challenging times during the last ten years after casino gaming revenues peaked at $155 million in 2007, the first year of the Great Recession. Since then there have been four years when revenues increased, but last year revenues were $137 million.
This despite several attempts to tweak profits, by going to 24/7 gaming, adding roulette and craps and expanding alcohol sales to around the clock. All improved things, but not dramatically.
The newest attempt is to almost double the number of hotel rooms in the city from 450 to 950. That and the hope that voters in November will Referendum DD, which would legalize sports betting as soon as May 2020.
Work has begun on one of the three hotel expansions that are in the works. This $14 million, 102-room hotel is scheduled for an October 2020 opening. It will be next door to the Wildwood Casino, which relocated a parking lot to make room for it.
Wildwood Casino co-owner Joe Canfora told the Colorado Springs Gazette: “Cripple Creek has so many good ingredients, but they haven’t been put together.”
He said many patrons from Colorado Springs pass on Cripple Creek and instead go to Black Hawk or Las Vegas because of more numerous and higher quality accommodations. Additional rooms will cause visitors to extend their stays, particularly if hotels offer vacation packages, Canfora told the Gazette.
Black Hawk expanded the number of hotel rooms during the last ten years. The addition of the 536-room Ameristar Casino Resort Spa went hand in hand with casino revenues that outpaced those in Cripple Creek. The Monarch Casino is now building a 519-hotel expansion that will open before December.
Cripple Creek’s Brass Ass, McGills and Midnight Rose casinos, all owned by Triple Crown Casinos, plan to begin work soon on a $40 million, 150-room hotel that will open in 2021, and will have convention space, a fitness center, hot tubs and other attractions.
Although Triple Crown General Manager Larry Hill agrees that Cripple Creek needs to increase the number of rooms, he disagrees with comparisons to Black Hawk, which is closer to the Denver market.
The biggest hotel project planned in Cripple Creek is that of Full House Resorts, which bought Bronco Bill’s Casino three years ago and soon after announced a $120 million 150 room hotel, top-end restaurant and meeting space that will accommodate 1,000. The 400-unit parking structure will need to go in first because the hotel will take up the existing parking. Full House is currently seeking financing for the project, which could take up to nine months according to CEO Dan Lee. Meanwhile the hotel is still “undergoing design changes.”
Lee expects the expansion to be transformative and talks about how the Ameristar casino in Black Hawk wasn’t truly profitable until the hotel was built. The company also expects to draw corporate meetings and conferences and for the hotel to book entertainment on the weekends as a further tourist draw.
The pluses from sports betting won’t be as obvious if it is legalized. Sports book would be allowed in casinos and online. Casino companies are in discussions with sports bet companies such as PointsBet, which has already penned a deal with the Double Eagle Hotel and Casino in Cripple Creek. If DD passes it plans to build a sports bar. Bronco Billy’s also plans to add a sports bar. Triple Crown brags that its sports bar will be “the nicest in Cripple Creek with lots of TVs and leather seating,” according to the Gazette.
The Colorado Gaming Association recently released a poll indicating that voters were “slightly favorable,” towards DD.
