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Caesars Virginia opens visitors center to drive guests to local businesses. Posted on: October 10, 2026, 06:46h. Last updated on: October 9, 2026, 04:46h. Key points. * Caesars Virginia opened a 600-square-foot tourism center to encourage resort guests to visit Danville's downtown businesses and attractions * The SoSi Tourism Center will offer personalized recommendations, building on Caesars' efforts to support local businesses * Caesars Virginia generated $269.4 million in gaming revenue through August, leading Virginia's casino market Caesars Virginia has opened a visitors center inside the casino resort that's dedicated to promoting local business in Danville. When Caesars Entertainment bid for the Danville casino opportunity, the casino giant pledged to be a community partner by boosting local tax revenue and serving as a catalyst for small-business growth. Unlike the all-encompassing large-scale casino resorts Caesars is known for, which provide guests with everything they need under one roof, Caesars Virginia is actively encouraging its guests to venture outside its doors to visit historic downtown Danville. Known as the SoSi Tourism Center, the 600-square-foot space is near the resort's spa and fitness center. SoSi refers to Visit SoSi, the regional tourism brand of the Danville Office of Economic Development & Tourism. "SoSi" in Virginia means Southside Virginia, specifically the region encompassing Danville and Pittsylvania County. Officials with Visit SoSi plan to staff the visitors center with employees who know Danville well and can make recommendations based on a guest's needs and desires. "When guests extend their stays, everyone benefits. Our local businesses benefit, our attractions benefit, our community benefits and, most importantly, our guests leave with a desire to return again and again," Meriwether added, as reported by the Cardinal News. Caesars supports local. Las Vegas-based Caesars Entertainment directs 6.5% of its monthly gross gaming revenue to the City of Danville. The casino also makes annual gaming fee payments to the local government. In fiscal year 2025, Danville collected nearly $31.4 million from Caesars Virginia. The revenue allocations included $1.8 million for public education, more than $4.1 million for public safety, $1.2 million for housing, and $1.8 million for city infrastructure. The casino also contributed more than $6.4 million toward promoting economic opportunity. Along with 1,200 jobs, Caesars Virginia has supported the city by providing resort space for Danville restaurants. The casino's 500 Block Food Hall features options from local vendors, including Southern Slices and Mill Burger. The SoSi Tourism Center will feature downtown businesses worthy of the short trip to Danville's River District. While some downtown businesses and restaurants have reported only a small boost in traffic since Caesars Virginia opened in December 2024, the SoSi Tourism Center will ideally entice more resort guests to venture off property. Caesars Virginia revenue. Caesars Virginia is the top-grossing casino in Virginia. Through August, Caesars Virginia's 1,544 slots and 88 table games generated gross gaming revenue (GGR) of approximately $269.4 million. Rivers Casino Portsmouth was a distant second at $216.2 million, and Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Bristol was third at $176.9 million. Two temporary casinos also operate: Live! Virginia in Petersburg and The Interim Gaming Hall in Norfolk. Devin O'Connor is a senior reporter for Casino.org, covering politics, casino business, and gaming news. Devin came on board with Casino.org in 2014. He lives in Arlington, Va.

Ocean Casino's $14M Cove bet: AC's capital spending surge. How Ocean Casino's $14M Cove expansion fits into Atlantic City's bigger capital spending bet. Eleven thousand nine hundred and thirty five square feet. That's the new footprint for The Cove once Ocean Casino Resort finishes its latest build-out, according to ROI-NJ's reporting on the project published October 2. The number itself won't mean much to most boardwalk regulars. But the $14 million behind it says something louder than square footage ever could. Atlantic City casinos don't spend that kind of money on a whim. Not when nine properties just posted a 10.1% drop in gross operating profit for the second quarter of this year, even as overall net revenue climbed. Something has to justify the outlay. Ocean's bet is that high-limit slot players, the ones who actually move the needle on a casino floor, need a reason to stay loyal to a physical room instead of chasing bonuses on their phones. This is a construction story first. It's a margin story second. And only at the very end does it become a story about where the gambling industry's money is actually migrating. The Cove, by the numbers. The expansion nearly doubles The Cove's current size. Ocean is targeting an early 2027 debut, per the ROI-NJ account, with the lounge built specifically around high-limit slot players rather than table games. That's a deliberate choice. Slots carry higher margins than table games in most Atlantic City houses, and high-limit slot rooms in particular tend to draw a smaller, higher-spending crowd that doesn't need a pit boss hovering nearby. Ocean isn't alone in spending big right now. Caesars Entertainment has pledged $75 million toward a new theater and $400 million in broader Atlantic City renovations, a deal covering multiple properties along the boardwalk. Resorts Casino Hotel, the city's oldest gaming hall, began its own multi-year renovation push earlier this year. Three different operators, three different playbooks, one shared assumption: standing still is the riskiest move on the table right now. Why now, when profits are already squeezed. Here's the uncomfortable part. Atlantic City's nine casinos generated $844.5 million in net revenue during Q2 2026. Profit still fell. Expenses, a lot of them tied to running parallel online operations alongside physical floors, ate into the gains. That's not a secret inside the industry. It's the exact tension driving these capital bets. Spend more to protect the physical experience, or let brick-and-mortar quietly become the smaller half of the business. Ocean picked the first option. So did Caesars. The logic holds up if you squint at it long enough: a high-limit slot player who feels like a VIP in a redesigned lounge is less likely to just open an app instead. Not every operator agrees with that logic, for what it's worth. Some executives privately think the renovation arms race is a defensive move dressed up as a growth strategy. I'd lean toward believing both things are true at once. Where the growth is actually happening. None of this spending happens in a vacuum. Atlantic City operators are watching their online divisions outperform their physical floors in almost every recent earnings period, and the smart ones are positioning for growth in states that haven't even flipped the switch yet. As Texas online casinos move closer to legalization, AC-based brands with existing online infrastructure in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Michigan are already laying groundwork to launch fast if and when Austin lawmakers act. That's not speculation. It's the same playbook these operators ran when Michigan and West Virginia opened their markets, just aimed at a bigger, untapped population. Gambling, like any form of entertainment, carries risk, and operators expanding into new states are required to build responsible gambling tools into their platforms from day one. A research firm cited by Yogonet in late August projected Atlantic City could shed more than 8,100 casino jobs as regional competition intensifies, largely from Pennsylvania and New York properties nibbling at the same customer base. That's the backdrop against which every renovation announcement has to be read. Ocean isn't just building a nicer slot lounge. It's trying to make sure Atlantic City remains a destination people choose on purpose, rather than a stop they used to make before Philadelphia and New York got their own flashy casino floors. The jobs and construction side nobody's talking about. A $14 million build creates real, immediate work. Electricians, HVAC contractors, flooring crews, security system installers. These are union jobs in a region that, as the Yogonet report notes, is bracing for long-term employment losses elsewhere in the industry. Short-term construction spending doesn't offset a structural jobs decline. But it's not nothing either, especially for trades workers who've watched casino capital projects slow down over the past several years. City officials have leaned on this argument before. Every major renovation, from the Hard Rock's earlier facelifts to Caesars' current theater project, gets framed partly as a jobs story alongside the guest-experience pitch. It works because it's largely true, even if it's also convenient messaging. What happens by early 2027. The Cove's new footprint opens in early 2027, assuming the timeline holds. Construction timelines in Atlantic City have slipped before. Watch whether Ocean treats the launch as a standalone event or bundles it with other property upgrades, the way Caesars has signaled it will across its portfolio. Either way, the bigger story here isn't really about one high-limit slot lounge. It's about an industry deciding, property by property, how much it's willing to spend defending a business model that's getting squeezed from two directions at once. Frequently asked questions. How much is Ocean Casino Resort spending on The Cove expansion? Ocean Casino Resort is investing $14 million to expand The Cove, its high-limit slot lounge, according to ROI-NJ's October 2026 reporting. The project will nearly double the lounge's current footprint to 11,935 square feet, with a planned debut in early 2027. Why are Atlantic City casino profits falling despite revenue growth? Atlantic City's nine casinos posted $844.5 million in Q2 2026 net revenue, yet gross operating profit dropped 10.1%. Rising costs tied to running online gaming operations alongside physical casino floors are a major factor cited by industry data from the NJ Division of Gaming Enforcement. Is Ocean the only Atlantic City casino spending heavily on renovations right now? No. Caesars Entertainment has pledged $75 million toward a new theater and $400 million across broader Atlantic City renovations. Resorts Casino Hotel, the city's oldest property, also began a multi-year renovation push earlier in 2026. Could Atlantic City lose casino jobs even with all this new construction spending? Yes. A report cited by Yogonet in August 2026 projected Atlantic City could lose more than 8,100 casino jobs as regional competition from Pennsylvania and New York intensifies. Short-term construction jobs don't offset that longer-term structural pressure. When will The Cove's expansion be completed? Ocean Casino Resort is targeting an early 2027 opening for the expanded Cove lounge, per ROI-NJ's reporting. Construction timelines on Atlantic City projects have slipped before, so that date isn't locked in stone just yet.

Saved by the high rollers: Strip sees loss of value customers, but lift from premium play. Baccarat revenue keeps on the positive side in August even while visitation slows and the Vegas airport sees its 19th straight month of passenger declines. October 1st, 2026 at 2:00 AM Caesars Entertainment CEO Tom Reeg responds to a question during a panel discussion at the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas on Sept. 29, 2026. (Jeff Scheid/The Nevada Independent) Las Vegas' high-end gamblers have boosted the bottom line for casinos, which have been challenged in luring value-seeking customers, top executives of the Strip's three largest resort operators told attendees of the Global Gaming Expo (G2E). That scenario played out in August. Without high-end baccarat play, the Strip's less-than 1 percent revenue increase during the month would have been an overall loss, according to the monthly revenue report released by the Gaming Control Board on Wednesday. "The leisure customer is not as strong as it has been," Caesars Entertainment CEO Tom Reeg said during the G2E's keynote session at The Venetian Expo. Reeg was joined by MGM Resorts International CEO Bill Hornbuckle and Wynn Resorts CEO Craig Billings. Combined, the companies operate 18 Strip resorts catering to all market segments. "We had a couple of summers here that were exceedingly strong," said Reeg, alluding to the years following the pandemic when the Strip produced record gaming revenue. "We've kind of gone back to the normal seasonality in Las Vegas. For those of us who lived through the days when we were 98 percent occupancy in the summer, it's jarring." Buoyed by $848.8 million in Strip baccarat wagering - a nearly 35 percent increase - the tables collected $155 million, an increase of 34 percent from August 2025. The Strip's overall increase to $684.1 million in revenue was matched by a less than 1 percent increase in slot machine revenue. Non-baccarat table game revenue was down more than 19 percent. In both areas, wagering was off between 3 percent and 4 percent. Hornbuckle said the luxury segment on the Strip "continues to do exceptionally well." He said the convention business is up almost 11 percent through August. However, the company's leisure properties, such as Excalibur and Luxor, have had to adjust. "Whether it's all-inclusive packaging like we do at Luxor or other things that other competitors have done, there is real value in Las Vegas," Hornbuckle said. But even as average hotel room rates have increased, he said "we're still 40 percent lower than New York." Hornbuckle said Las Vegas was "still an incredible value," but the market didn't do a good job paying attention to the smaller details. "Do we have expenses that continue to creep in all things? Absolutely. And so when people talk about parking and resort fees and water, they're all part and parcel to a bigger mix," he said. "We have to be careful that we have to pay attention to that segment, or we're going to lose it." Nevada gaming revenue statewide was a mixed bag, increasing 3.1 percent to almost $1.3 billion. The Las Vegas locals markets combined were up 9.5 percent to $261.1 million. Downtown's gaming revenue fell 3 percent to $61.5 million while Reno was up 15.7 percent to $79.4 million. According to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA), the average daily hotel room rate on the Strip was $153.15 per night in August, down 11.4 percent from a year ago. However, for the first eight months of the year, the Strip's average daily room rate is $196.11, up 2 percent. Billings said Wynn Las Vegas and Encore have avoided any issues from the challenged value-customer market. The company, which is building a $5.7 billion resort in the United Arab Emirates, has a different business model. He said Wynn, which operates the Encore Boston Harbor and two resorts in Macau, has its eyes set on international growth. "We will always focus on what's the most comfortable experience for the customer and where we can drive the highest possible [cash flow]," Billings said. "The reality is operating costs in Las Vegas are higher than they used to be, and so you really have to think about occupancy versus rate." August declines for visitors and airport Visitor volume to Las Vegas fell 4.3 percent to 3 million in August, due to a reduced number of special events and the absence of Labor Day weekend, which took place solely in September. The LVCVA said visitation for the first eight months of 2026 is flat compared to the same period in 2025. However, the one bright spot was convention attendance, which was up 6 percent in August and 10.5 percent over eight months. Meanwhile, Harry Reid International Airport suffered its 19th straight month of passenger declines in August. The airport has seen declines in 23 of the past 24 months. More than 4.1 million passengers came through the airport during the month, a decline of 9.2 percent. The upside was a 3.9 percent increase in international passengers, the second straight monthly jump. Still, international passenger volume is down 7.1 percent through August, led by declines from the two largest air carriers from Canada - a 23.8 percent drop from WestJet and a 8.4 percent decline from Air Canada. Also, Frontier Airlines has stepped in to pick up the passenger volume lost by the May closure of Spirit Airlines. Frontier increased its total by 35 percent in August and is up 19 percent for the year. Southwest Airlines, Reid's busiest air carrier, saw a 4.6 percent decrease in passenger volume in August and has seen a less than 1 percent decline in the year's first eight months. Support independent elections coverage and journalism in Nevada. You've enjoyed unlimited access to its reporting because The Nevada Independent is committed to providing independent, accessible journalism for all Nevadans. But sustaining this work - informing communities, holding leaders accountable, and strengthening civic life - depends on readers like you. Nevada needs strong, independent journalism. Will you join The Nevada Independent? A gift of any amount helps keep its reporting free and accessible to everyone across its state and funds its elections coverage. The Nevada Independent is a 501(c)3 nonprofit news organization. The Nevada Independent is committed to transparency and disclose all its donors. The following people or entities mentioned in this article are financial supporters of its work: * MGM Resorts International - $1,000,000 * Wynn Resorts - $550,002 * Caesars Entertainment - $252,700 Howard Stutz. Howard Stutz is a senior reporter covering gaming, tourism and sports business.