The Choctaw Casino & Resort’s $600 million expansion near the border between Oklahoma and Texas will roll out a big red carpet for Lone Star State residents, whose state has no casino resorts.
The expansion, the includes a 21-story hotel tower, dubbed the Sky Tower, will open August 6. The Durant casino’s second hotel will have 1,000 new rooms to add to the existing 717, six restaurants, 11 bars, a 3 acre pool complex, and gaming that includes 3,300 new slots and 40 gaming tables. This brings the total up to more than 7,200 slots and 136 tables.
North Texans provide about 80 percent of visitors to the Choctaw casino and other nearby casinos such as the Winstar World Casino and Resort. They also tap the Dallas market, less than 100 miles away.
Choctaw Assistant General Manager Wendy Carter told the Dallas News
“We have purposely designed our new expansion to appeal to all guests in the nearby states of Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas by providing an elevated resort-style gaming experience within a short distance from home.”
The Choctaw will also make a major play for convention business now that the pandemic is lifting, and the hotel rooms will cater to a demand that had been growing even before the pandemic. Now there is a steady flow of new bookings.
Carter told the News: “We believe that our constraint before was the number of available guest rooms, so we added 1,000, and that should help us attract much higher attendance rates for conferences and things of that nature.”
