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Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Bristol’s permanent facility in Virginia is celebrating an early milestone, having already garnered over 100,000 customers since its grand opening on November 14.
It has been a whirlwind few days since the facility went live, as it had 99% occupancy during the opening weekend. And the wins just keep coming as the casino has paid out $12 million in jackpots, including $7.3 million during their opening weekend.
Hard Rock Bristol President Allie Evangelista spoke to the Bristol Herald-Courier about the opening in glowing terms.
It was much better than expectations in both visitation and revenues. Our jackpot payouts obviously correlate to the number of people in the building and how well everybody is perceiving the property. So much play generates more payouts.
Hard Rock Bristol President Allie Evangelista, in interview with the Bristol Herald-Courier
The big question now is whether it can maintain this brisk pace of business. One benchmark for comparison is Rivers Portsmouth, which was the state’s first permanent casino to open, in January 2023. It celebrated its one-millionth customer after about five months of operation. That works out to around 50,000 visitors per week, similar to the pace Hard Rock has started with.
Hard Rock paused gradual launch in favor of grand opening
Hard Rock was the first casino operator to be granted a license in the Old Dominion State in April 2022, and it opened its temporary casino on July 8, 2022. The plan was for gaming at the permanent location to begin this summer, with some other amenities to follow.
Instead, Hard Rock’s leadership decided that it would be better to open everything at once, even if it meant waiting.
Evangelista said that the opening day crowds proved that the decision to wait was the right one.
Feedback was amazing. Everybody is extremely impressed with the property, and it was exactly what we wanted to hear. We didn’t open the property early because we couldn’t open the full experience. Making the decision to delay the opening and have everything at once was the right decision, just based on guest feedback.
Hard Rock Bristol President Allie Evangelista, in interview with the Bristol Herald-Courier
Although it was not the first to open a permanent casino, as Rivers Portsmouth beat Hard Rock to it when it opened its permanent facility on January 23, 2023, despite being given a license later in November 2022 by the Virginia Lottery Board.
Fingers are still crossed for Caesars Entertainment, which held its groundbreaking of Caesars Virginia in Danville in October 2022 to have its grand opening this month.
The other state in which Hard Rock opened a permanent casino this year was Rockford, Illinois, on August 29, 2024.
Evangelista spoke about how delaying the initial grand opening in Virginia, which was scheduled for July, panned out to hit an advantage for the company.
Virginians show an appetite for gambling expansion
Currently in Virginia, real money online casinos and poker rooms are yet to be legalized, but the state still has other options that players can thrill themselves with, such as
- Sweepstakes casino
- Social Casino
- Online sports betting
- Daily fantasy sports
- Online horse racing
Despite not having traditional online casinos, Virginia’s casinos are ringing in the dough.
According to the Virginia Lottery’s latest report, the state’s three land-based casinos raked in $57.0 million in revenue for October 2024. That is a 14.9% increase from last year’s $49.6 million; talk about a jackpot.
Although Virginia’s casinos have yet to exceed their all-time revenue high of $65.1 million, set in March 2024, October’s gaming revenues were impressive, with a total of $57 million.
The breakdown includes:
- Rivers Casino Portsmouth ($25.4 million)
- Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Temporary Bristol ($13.4 million)
- Caesars Virginia ($18.2 million)
The state collected $11.5 million in taxes.
