Harrah’s Cherokee Casino in Cherokee, North Carolina recently celebrated its 20th anniversary. With 150,000 square feet of gaming space, a 1,100-room hotel, a 3,000-seat entertainment area, restaurants and a spa, the property, owned by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, has become a premiere tourist destination for North Carolinians and for gamblers from surrounding states.
Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Vice President of Marketing Lee Ann Bridges said, “In the 20 years that we’ve been open we’ve had 61 million people visit. Between our two facilities, we employ about 3,500 employees–about 2,500 here in Cherokee and about a 1,000 in Murphy.”
The tribe and the state entered into a gaming agreement after Congress enacted the National Indian Gaming Regulatory Act in 1988. The casino opened in 1997. In 2012, the agreement was renegotiated, allowing live dealers and card games. State Senator Jim Davis said, “I think their yearly revenue at the time was $370 million a year and they anticipated that live dealers would expand them about $70 or $80 million a year, and it exceeded that expectation as well.”
Tribal Chief Richard Sneed noted, “The individual impact is roughly $12,000 a year that each individual member receives biannually and then of course we have the minors trust fund.”
State Rep. Kevin Corbin pointed out, “All the area benefits from the tourist traffic. So a lot of people are hired in jobs that support the casino and surrounding area.” However, job growth requires workforce housing, Sneed stated. “We really have to look at workforce housing. The challenge is, as everybody knows, the cost is prohibitive for someone who is making $8 or $10 or $12 an hour. So I think we have some responsibility to develop some workforce housing so we can recruit and retain a good workforce.”
