tulsaworld.com
O14 Sunday, February 23, 2020
TULSA WORLD
OUTLOOK2020 CASINOS
Gaming plays key role in local economy
The new Osage Casino north of downtown Tulsa is home to 1,500 electronic games. STEPHEN PINGRY/Tulsa World file
Three tribes’ flagship casinos continue to expand to offer more gaming, amenities By Lenzy Krehbiel-Burton For the Tulsa World
With three tribes’ flagship casinos in the immediate Tulsa metropolitan area, slot machines and blackjack continue to play a key role in the region’s economy. Cherokee Nation’s Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tulsa in Catoosa has about 2,600 electronic games and 454 guest rooms. The property’s most recent expansion, completed in February, added 65,000 square feet to accommodate 450 electronic and table games, a new poker room, a 7,000-square-foot multipurpose center, additional space for VIPs and Track 5, a two-story live music venue with a 1,200-square-foot dance floor. In fiscal year 2018 alone, the Cherokee Nation and its business arm, Cherokee Nation Businesses, had a $2.16 billion economic impact on northeastern Oklahoma, including supporting 3,542 jobs just in Tulsa County. Thirty-seven percent of Cherokee Nation Businesses’ gaming profits are automatically reinvested into tribal programs and services, including college scholarships, housing and health care. Gaming is also fiscally and physically facilitating the tribe’s language preservation efforts. Along with a multimillion-dollar investment to offer classes through Rogers State University Public Television, the former Tahlequah casino is in the process of being converted into a language facility that will house the Cherokee Nation’s immersion school, translation department and adult-level Cherokee Language Master Apprentice Program. “We’re going to quadruple our language programs,” Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. said at the InterTribal Council of the Five Civilized Tribes’ general session. “We’re already seeing the planning take root in our language departments. It’ll be the Durbin Feeling Language Center, and we’re pretty proud of that. “We’re going to spread this language all over the world.”
A roulette ball spins around a roulette table at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tulsa in Catoosa. IAN MAULE/Tulsa World file
Tulsa-area casinos Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tulsa 777 W. Cherokee St., Catoosa hardrockcasinotulsa.com
Osage Casino 951 W. 36th St. North osagecasino.com
River Spirit Casino Resort 8330 Riverside Parkway riverspirittulsa.com
A dealer deals a game of blackjack inside the River Spirit Casino Resort in Tulsa. JOHN CLANTON/Tulsa World file
PARTNERS IN PROGRESS
The rest of the proceeds are put toward gaming fees, job development programs and operating expenses, including paying out $197.7 million in payroll and benefits in fiscal year 2018 alone. That figure was calculated before the tribe raised its minimum wage from $9.50 per hour to $11 in 2019. The gaming footprint on Tulsa’s northwest side is continuing to grow, as well. The largest of Osage Casinos’ seven properties, Osage Casino Tulsa, 951 W. 36th St. North, covers 247,000 square feet. Thanks to a 2018 $160 million renovation project, the casino is home to 1,500 electronic games, 16 table games, 141 hotel rooms, the 2,000-seat Skyline Event Center, meeting space and a full-service microbrewery, Nine Band Brewing Co. Another round of expansion is currently underway, as construction on a second hotel tower started in July. The $28 million project is scheduled to be completed this summer, adding 145 rooms. The largest external revenue source for the Osage Nation, gaming provides about $40 million annually for tribal programs and services, including a health benefit plan for all Osage citizens and Daposka Ahnkondapi, the Osage Nation’s elementary immersion school in Pawhuska. Meanwhile, even with the temporary closure of its flagship property due to the Arkansas River’s recordbreaking spring floods, Muscogee (Creek) Nation’s gaming revenue increased 5.7% in 2019, according to the financial report released by the tribe in late January. The largest of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation’s nine casinos, River Spirit Casino Resort employs about 1,600 people, plus an additional 200 workers at Ruth’s Chris Steak House and Margaritaville. That increase helped make it possible for the tribe to provide financial assistance for 1,732 college students in late 2019, including 39 doctoral candidates. “Education empowers all citizens to pursue a better quality of life,” Principal Chief David Hill said during his State of the Nation address. “We owe it to our children to provide the tools to achieve these goals.”
