It’s official: the last of New York’s four new full-scale casinos has a new name.
The $1.2 billion gaming venue under development 90 miles north of New York City and formerly known as Montreign will be called Resorts World Catskills when it opens in early 2018.
The announcement came from Empire Resorts, which is building the 18-story hotel and 100,000-square-foot casino in the town of Thompson at the site of the former Concord Hotel, a Catskills landmark, and not far from the company’s own Monticello harness track and racino.
Publicly traded Empire (Nasdaq: NYNY) is majority held by Malaysia resort conglomerate Genting Group, which operates the mega-racino Resorts World New York City at Aqueduct racetrack in Queens. The new name is designed to leverage the global strengths of the Resorts World brand. Customers will be able to participate in the Genting Rewards Alliance loyalty program as part of innumerable opportunities to cross-promote the property with Resorts World casinos in Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, the Bahamas and Great Britain. The company also is building on the Las Vegas Strip.
“This recognized worldwide gaming and hospitality brand will provide us greater power to market our resort casino, which is designed to meet five-star and five-diamond standards, and provide regional, national and international exposure for the Catskills region,” said Empire Chairman Emanuel Pearlman.
The change also seeks to capture the “allure” the Catskills enjoyed in the last century as a vacation destination for metropolitan New York, he said.
With more than 60 planned table games and 2,100 slot machines, multiple dining, shopping and entertainment options, an indoor waterpark, a golf course and sizable meeting space, Resorts World Catskills will be the largest of the commercial casinos the state authorized in four designated regions back in 2013.
The others are Tioga Downs in Nichols, which transformed from a racino to a full-service casino in December 2016; del Lago Resort and Casino near Waterloo, which opened February 2; and Rivers Casino & Resort, which opened in Schenectady on February 6.
