“We are really right on par with any casino in Vegas,” he said. General manager Brooks Robinson told The Ledger he believes Harrah’s Cherokee Casino now offers the complete package. Is the 160,000 square feet of slots and table games dark and a little loud? Yes.īut there are also some nice restaurants, clothing boutiques, jewelry shops - and now, a sports book. If you’re expecting a small and depressing mountain-town casino, this isn’t it.Īre there elderly people with vacant looks tapping repeatedly on video slot-machine screens? Yes. Since the casino opened in1997, a tourist industry has grown up around it, with new hotels and restaurants. It has 1,108 rooms, which typically go for $500+ on the weekends, and is adding an additional 725 in an addition expected to be complete this year. But then you quickly see the massive and still-growing casino complex built tastefully along a creek. There are a couple big pawn shops, a tattoo parlor and mobile homes. mountains is sure to draw sports fans and additional gamblers from Charlotte, Atlanta, eastern Tennessee and elsewhere to this small town of 2,000 residents that sits on tribal lands of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.ĭriving into Cherokee, the town doesn’t look like much. The opening of sports betting in the N.C. After years of planning and securing the proper government approvals, Harrah’s on Thursday opened new sports books in Cherokee, three hours west of Charlotte, and in Murphy, an additional hour west. So went the first night that legal sports betting was available in North Carolina. Wichita State - as a ticker updated the scores of baseball spring training games in Arizona and provided the final scores from La Liga, a Spanish pro soccer league. A middle-aged balding guy in a navy blue golf shirt stood up in front of the 90-foot TV, whooped it up, did a little dance and fist-bumped his friend.įor the rest of the night, several dozen men in red recliners watched other riveting basketball games - such as Drake vs. Mary’s.īut here they were Thursday night, and as the close game wound down and it became clear Texas Southern would win, a group of about a dozen men started celebrating inside Harrah’s Cherokee Casino’s new sports gambling room, The Book. Before Thursday, in the small mountain town of Cherokee, it’s hard to imagine people caring much about a play-in NCAA Tournament game between two 16-seeds, Texas Southern and Mount St.

Harrah's cherokee casino sports book