“They want to expand their catchment zone to include larger cities as far away as Chicago and Detroit. “The Gun Lake owners have set their sights on creating a premier entertainment destination resort in the Midwest,” says Bell. Paul Bell, the lead architect for HBG Design, says the expansion was a reaction to the desires of Gun Lake tribal leadership. “And then phase four, which we just completed in September 2021, consisted of three new F&B outlets and began to set the table for phase five.” “But it was really about a connector building for a parking garage that was needed in anticipation of meeting the needs of future expansions due to the increased traffic and also the depletion of existing surface parking. “When I first came on, I came on midway through what was characterized as the phase three expansion, which was rather modest in the sense it was maybe 100 slot machine additions to the casino floor,” Semola says. But even phase five is playing catchup, as the two closest competitors will still have larger properties than Gun Lake. Semola came on board at the end of phase four and is enthusiastically supporting the fifth.

Now in phase five of its expansion project, led by current President and CEO Sal Semola, who was hired following the end of the Station management contract, the Gun Lake Casino is about to add a hotel and a pool and events complex with multiple pools and areas for banquets and entertainment. Station built a serviceable casino for the tribe but it quickly realized something larger would be necessary, and the first expansion was under way. But the tribe had all the required history and could back it up, so five years later, it achieved recognition and began the equally arduous process of taking land into trust for a reservation.įive years after that, the process was concluded and the tribe hired Station Casinos to build and operate the Gun Lake Casino, which opened in 2011, ushering in a new era of economic prosperity. In fact, at that time, the Gun Lake Tribe had only just applied for federal recognition, often a long and drawn-out process. The Gun Lake Casino was just a glimmer in the eye of Michigan’s Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians, better known as the Gun Lake Tribe, when the Mashantucket Pequots opened Foxwoods in the early 1990s.

Integrated resorts were once the bailiwick of Las Vegas and Asia, but today’s tribal casinos are entering that territory eagerly. READ THE FULL ARTICLE IN GLOBAL GAMING BUSINESS’ TRIBAL GOVERNMENT GAMING MAGAZINE Tribal Government Gaming Magazine, March 2023 Tribal Casinos 3.0

Gun lake casino and hotel