ALBANY -- The 40-year wait for a full-scale casino in the Catskills is about to end.
Resorts World Catskills announced Wednesday it will open its doors of the $1 billion facility on Thursday, Feb. 8, at 8 a.m.
The opening is ahead of schedule. It originally planned to open on March 1.
“Our staff has worked tirelessly to ensure that when we open our doors for the first time, we will be ready to provide our guests an unparalleled experience,” Ryan Eller, president of Resorts World Catskills, said in a statement.
The opening of a major casino has been decades in the making for the Catskills, which was once a booming tourist region for New York City residents who wanted to head to the mountains.
The casino will hopefully again draw visitors to the Catskills, which is 90 miles north of the city, advocates said.
The casino won a competitive bidding process in 2014 by the state Gaming Commission to get a gambling license. It will be the last of four upstate casinos that received a license to open.
“With our opening, we look forward to driving tourism to the Catskills, stimulating the economy and making meaningful contributions that help put the Catskills back on the map as a premier getaway and true destination," Charles Degliomini, the casino's vice president, said.
The facility will have 150 table games and 2,150 state-of-the-art slot machines, as well as clubs and restaurants.
Ultimately, the complex will include a resort with 332 all-suite luxury rooms, an entertainment village, an indoor waterpark lodge, and an 18-hole Rees Jones-designed golf course.
On Tuesday, details about the water park were announced. It is set to open in early 2019.
Genting, the Malaysian-based gambling giant, owns a majority of Resorts World Catskills and also runs the largest video-lottery terminal racino in the nation at Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens.
The new casino will be looking to have a better performance than the three other upstate casinos that opened over the last year.
Rivers Casino in Schenectady; del Lago casino in the Finger Lakes; and Tioga Downs in the Southern Tier have all produced revenue well below expectations, records showed.
Resorts World Catskills will be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The place estimates it will bring 1,400 jobs to the region.
A Grand Opening celebration is scheduled for May 2018.
