The Danville facility is one of several new casinos authorized by Virginia’s legislature, and most are near the state’s southern border with North Carolina. When it opens next year, it will include a 500-room hotel and convention center with a 2,500-seat theater – the sort of facility that could draw performances and business conferences that Danville hasn’t hosted before. Just behind the tent at the site of a long-abandoned textile mill, construction crews are building a much larger facility.
Even on a weekday afternoon, the place is busy, with a parking lot full of cars - many of them sporting North Carolina plates. Upbeat music and the faint smell of cigarettes fill the air (yes, indoor smoking is allowed) as visitors try their luck on rows of brightly colored slot machine screens. They see a recently opened casino in Danville, Virginia - a few miles north of the state line - as an example of how gambling could help economically challenged communities.Ĭaesars opened a temporary casino in Danville in May in a giant air-conditioned tent. North Carolina lawmakers are considering a plan to allow up to four new casinos in rural areas of the state.
