The Treasure Chest riverboat casino in Kenner, Louisiana is moving ashore, from Lake Pontchartrain to a land-based location on its current parking lot. The $100 million venue is expected to open in spring 2024.
Treasure Chest Marketing Director Rodney Miller told NOLA.com, “We’re just excited to be on land. We’re happy to be in Kenner, to be where we are. We’re a neighborhood casino.”
Construction began in February on the land-based facility which will double the size of the casino’s gaming floor, offer four restaurants and feature nearly almost 10,000 square feet of flexible space for conventions, meetings or live entertainment.
Currently Treasure Chest, which opened in 1994, has one restaurant and no event space. It draws an estimated 85 percent of its customers from a radius of 150 miles. “That puts the Treasure Chest and the Boomtown over in Harvey at some disadvantage,” said Ronnie Johns, chairman of the Louisiana Gaming Control Board.
In the fiscal year ending June 30, Treasure Chest reported net gambling revenue of $9.7 million, up 11.6 percent over the previous year, ranking it eighth among the 13 Louisiana riverboat casinos operating in fiscal 2022. Treasure Chest paid the state $20.9 million in taxes and the city of Kenner $3.3 million. According to the Gaming Control Board, none of the state’s riverboat casinos has returned to pre-Covid 19 levels.
Owned by Las Vegas-based Boyd Gaming, Treasure Chest employs 244 people with a payroll of $11.8 million, according to state data.
The Horseshoe Casino in Westlake was the first riverboat casino to move to land, last December. Hollywood Casino in Baton Rouge will be next, making its transition this fall. The Belle in Baton Rouge and Diamond Jacks in Bossier City also have plans to move onto land. Johns said he’s in discussions with three more riverboat casinos about that possibility.
