New York’s new Rivers Casino and Resort is looking forward to a warm public reception at its debut on February 8.
The Schenectady venue, the latest of four full-scale commercial casinos destined to change the New York gaming landscape, will feature a 51,000-square-foot gaming floor encompassing 1,150 machine games, 67 live table games and a 15-table poker room.
The entertainment offering includes a lounge and meetings and events space and an array of eateries and is slated to grow significantly with the addition this summer of a 165-room hotel and spa.
The property, whose total cost is pegged at $330 million, will employ 1,150 at full build-out.
“It’s going to be big,” said Charles Wiff of Gramercy Communications in Troy, which handles media relations for Rivers owner Rush Street Gaming of Chicago. “How big it is remains to be seen.”
Rivers, hyped as one of the anchors of Schenectady’s new Mohawk Harbor development of hotels, shopping outlets, office buildings and residences, will come on line a week after the planned opening of del Lago Resort and Casino in the state’s Finger Lakes region.
The first of the four casinos, Tioga Downs Casino & Racing, opened in December in the south-central part of the state. The last, Montreign, is slated to open in the Catskills in 2018.
