The permanent Hard Rock Bristol Casino and Sportsbook now has an opening date.
The $550 million project, which includes more than 2,700 slot machines and 100 table games, will open on Nov. 14. According to a report at 500nation.com, the entire project also encompasses a 3,200-seat theater for concerts and other gatherings, a 750-room hotel and an outdoor entertainment facility.
The opening date for the permanent casino has been pushed back a couple of times. The initial target was May 2024, then it was this summer. But now the new casino will be operating in time for Thanksgiving tourist traffic.
Hard Rock runs a variety of business, including casinos, restaurants and more. The company offers the Hard Rock Bet Virginia sportsbook for online wagering in the commonwealth.
Timeline Of Bristol Casino
A state that did not have any casinos or online sports wagering just a few years ago has since added both options, and Hard Rock was a key component of that growth.
The real groundwork for the process started when four cities in the state passed referendums to make casinos legal. Bristol was one of those cities to approve such a measure at the time, along with Danville, Portsmouth and Norfolk.
The casino site currently operating in Bristol had been a Belk women’s store, according to 500nations.com. The temporary Virginia casino opening happened on July 8, 2022, making Bristol the first legal casino in the state.
Virginia Casinos Available
There are three casinos operating in the state; Rivers Casino Portsmouth and Caesars Virginia in Danville are the others. According to a Virginia Lottery report released on Oct. 15, Hard Rock Bristol reported just more than $14 million in adjusted gross revenue (AGR) for September 2024. Of that total, $11.68 million came from the facility’s 905 slot machines and $2.4 million was derived from its 29 table games.
The new casino will have about three times the number of both slots and table games. The games at those three statewide facilities are the best gaming bet for now because there are no legal Virginia online casinos yet.
Work is still being done on the new, permanent Bristol casino, which is at 500 Gate City Highway, where the Bristol Mall once stood.
“We have the furniture for the hotel carpet being installed, mattresses, and then, of course, onboarding our 600 more team members and doing all the training and preparation for opening on November 14,” Hard Rock Bristol president Allie Evangelista told WJHL, a television station based in nearby Johnson City, Tennessee.
Hard Rock announced that country music star Blake Shelton would perform at the new facility as part of the opening on Nov. 14.
In the meantime, BetVirginia.com offers insights and reviews for Virginia sports gambling that you can engage with anywhere in the state.
