Choctaw Nation officials announced the $238 million Choctaw Landing Casino and Resort in Hochatown, OK. will hold a soft opening in April and an official grand opening in May, although exact dates have not been announced.
Located less than four hours from Dallas in southeast Oklahoma, the facility will be the Choctaw Nation’s fourth casino resort and eighth gambling venue.
Choctaw Landing General Manager Amy Davis said construction began in June 2022 on the 202,000-square-foot destination, which will feature a gaming floor with 600 slot machines and eight gaming tables, plus a 100-room hotel, pool and fitness center, three conference rooms, four dining options, a Starbucks, small grocery store, and an outdoor amphitheater.
Officials said the casino resort is expected to create 400 jobs and generate $95 million in regional economic development.
Davis said hundreds of paintings and sculptures by local Choctaw artists will be displayed throughout the resort. “We are really incorporating our tribal Choctaw culture here. Choctaw Nation has a long history in Hochatown. Most of our tribal members still live around. It’s something we try to represent at all our resorts, but it was something we knew we wanted to represent here. It’s a perfect fit for us,” she said, per the Dallas Morning News.
Originally settled by the Choctaw Nation in the 1820s, Hochatown has become a popular tourist area for northern Texans, attracted by scenic Broken Bow Lake, luxury cabins, boating, and fishing. The new casino resort is expected to bring 443,000 visitors to the region annually.
Davis said bringing the town’s infrastructure up to standards was one of the major challenges the tribe faced in building the casino resort.
“It’s a very remote, resort type of destination and Hochatown is growing so much every day. One of the things we noticed in trying to build this facility properly is how much the infrastructure was lacking,” she said.
As a result, the tribe invested $7 million in building new roads, a wastewater treatment plant and an electrical substation, and improving the fire department and utilities.
