On Tuesday was started the construction of the new hotel of Tioga Downs Casino. According to information provided by the casino, the six-floor building will feature 161 rooms and it will be able to seat up to 400 guests in the planned entertainment centre.

The ground breaking ceremony at the site was attended by the owner of the property Jeff Gural as well as by many other community leaders. In his speech, Gural expressed hopes to see the full gaming casino opened sometime this fall, plus he announced that the hotel is expected to be finished next fall.

The owner of Tioga Downs Casino also addressed the changes of the initial expansion plan after the New York State Gaming Commission refused to give the operator a casino licence in the first round of bidding.

The operator spent a lot of money promoting an amendment that legalised casinos in the state back in 2013, but its first attempt to obtain the then newly presented full casino licence in 2014 wasn’t successful. The casino’s gaming license was approved only last week.

Gural said that the company had the advantage “of being able to see” what the reasons for not being approved for a gaming license were. According to his statement, one of the things that the Commission saw as a con was the fact that the hotel was too small. Therefore, Gural revealed, they changed the plan and made the hotel bigger. The owner pointed out that they “changed everything they said was wrong.”

Tioga Downs in New York was opened on 9th of June, 2006 and features a 19,000 square feet casino floor. It offers 800 gaming machines as well as several amenities and restaurants.