Chatham-Kent will be able to celebrate the official opening of the municipality's newest casino with prizes, cash giveaways and celebrity meet and greets.
Gateway Casinos Entertainment Limited held the grand opening of the Cascades Casino Chatham on Thursday, and kicked off six days of events with a ribbon-cutting ceremony to commemorate the opening of the new entertainment complex. A number of Gateway officials were in attendance, along with Chatham-Kent Mayor Darrin Canniff, Chatham-Kent Leamington MPP Rick Nicholls and Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation Chief Operating Officer Lori Sullivan.
Sullivan capped off the grand opening on Thursday by presenting Mayor Canniff with a cheque for $884,638 for the 2019 fiscal year from a share of the gaming revenue of the now-closed Gateway Casinos Dresden.
The casino held its soft opening back on July 16 and has already become a well-established entertainment destination for CK.
"This far exceeded our expectations and people are really pumped...We've been packed every night," said Rob Mitchell, Gateway's director of communications and public affairs. "It's pretty exciting, we've got live entertainment [and] we want to keep the excitement going for the next six days.'
It was also announced on Thursday that casino employees had selected Chatham-Kent Hospice Foundation as the charity partner for the grand opening. The foundation will now receive $2 from every Tropic Thunder Pizza and $1 from every “Sons of Kent” draught beer sold between August 8 to September 6.
The public will also be given a chance to meet Calgary Flames defenseman T.J. Brodie and Montreal Canadiens forward Max Domi as part of the grand opening celebrations. The meet will be held on Friday at the MATCH Eatery between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. Ahead of the meet and greet, Domi will be accepting a $2,000 donation from Gateway on behalf of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
A number of other events are also planned for the casino throughout the weekend until Tuesday.
Mitchell credited both Canniff and former mayor Randy Hope for making Cascades Casino Chatham a possibility.
"They rolled out the red carpet for us, they were so welcoming to us," he said. "We had an idea this would be a great location for it because Chatham-Kent, I believe, is the 11th largest municipality in all of Canada. There's a lot of folks in this area."
Cascades Casino in Chatham is Gateway's first “from the ground up” build, featuring 300 slots and 10 table games, as well as two restaurants. The new $36 million casino created 200 new jobs for the community.