Posted on: March 18, 2024, 09:25h.
Last updated on: March 18, 2024, 09:36h.
Choctaw Landing, a $238 million project from the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma, has set an opening timeline for its boutique casino resort located in Hochatown.
Choctaw Landing will become the Oklahoma tribe’s fourth casino resort and eighth gaming venue in the Sooner State. The tribe primarily targets gamblers in border states, namely Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas.
Choctaw Landing is on a hiring spree to fill approximately 400 jobs to run the resort. Tribal officials said last week that the property will hold a soft opening with invited guests in April, and fully open to the public in May.
We’re right around the corner,” said Amy Davis, Choctaw Landing general manager.
The tribe broke ground on Choctaw Landing in June 2022. The more than 200,000-square-foot resort includes a casino floor with 600 slot machines and eight table games. A 100-room hotel is complemented by a fitness center, a pool, conference rooms, four restaurants and a Starbucks, an outdoor amphitheater, and a market.
Protecting Home Turf
Hochatown is in the southeast corner of Oklahoma, 20 miles north of the Texas border and 15 miles west of the Arkansas state line. Hochatown, a popular weekend getaway destination for people from North Texas, is also less than 100 miles from Louisiana.
Hochatown has many rental cabins for rural retreats. Other attractions include Broken Bow Lake, Beavers Bend Resort Park, Hochatown State Park, and Cedar Creek Golf Course at Beavers Bend.
The Choctaws and other Oklahoma tribes, specifically the Chickasaw Nation, which owns and operates WinStar World Casino Hotel in Thackerville, continue to invest heavily in southern Oklahoma. Along with opening a fourth resort casino, the Choctaws last year signed several Dallas sports legends to marketing deals.
Former NFL greats Troy Aikman and Darren Woodson, who both played for the Cowboys, and former Texas Rangers baseball star Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez, were each signed to promote Choctaw resorts. The sports icons appeared in a Super Bowl LVIII commercial that aired regionally last month.
All eyes are on Texas where billionaire Mark Cuban is working to bring commercial casinos to the Lone Star State. Last year, Cuban sold a majority stake in the NBA Dallas Mavericks to Las Vegas Sands controlling stakeholder Dr. Miriam Adelson.
Cuban has proposed developing a new NBA arena for the Mavs with an accompanying casino resort in conjunction with Sands. Such a development would be devastating for Oklahoma’s tribal casinos located just across the state’s southern border.
For now, the tribe isn’t concerned about Cuban’s ambitions. Sands has spent many millions of dollars lobbying state lawmakers in Texas to get behind a casino push to no avail. The tribe is betting on GOP lawmakers in Austin maintaining their opposition to commercial gambling in the years ahead.
I don’t think we’re worried about it. But we’ve thought about it and we are aware that it is on the radar,” said Jeremy Whitaker, regional marketing director for Choctaw Casinos and Resorts.
The Choctaws operate casino resorts in Durant and Grant. Both properties are only minutes north of the Texas-Oklahoma border.
City Refuge
Choctaw Landing will offer an upscale rustic retreat with lodge-style rooms. After testing their luck on the casino floor, guests can sip on a cocktail outdoors next to a firepit or rent one of nine private cabanas at the resort pool.
Hochatown tourism officials say the 100 rooms will help alleviate the overwhelming demand for the town’s current lodging allotment.
“Many people come out here on the weekends,” said Hochatown Mayor Dian Jordan. “We want people from the metroplex to enjoy the same experience as me, sitting on a back porch and looking at redbud trees while listening to the birds.”
