An 11-month-old Las Vegas-style hotel and casino in Cripple Creek has changed more than just the city’s skyline; it’s also enticing gamblers to wager more and prompting a wave of investment by some of the gaming industry’s high-profile players.
The Chamonix Casino & Hotel, which opened in phases from late December 2023 through early November, features 300 luxury rooms, an upscale steakhouse, a spa and fitness center, rooftop pool and a jewelry store with custom-made creations from seven designers. Full House Resorts spent $300 million to complete the nine-story Chamonix complex that’s attached to its Bronco Billy’s Casino, which the Las Vegas-based company acquired in 2016.
“This (hotel and casino) will be a major asset for the town, the state and our company for a long time,” Full House CEO Dan Lee said during an interview with The Gazette before the hotel’s grand opening last month. “It took us longer to build (Chamonix) than expected. I thought we would be fully open months ago. We have just got everything open. As soon as people realize the quality of hospitality we are providing here, we will grow the market.”
The company invited 600 of its best customers to celebrate Chamonix’s grand opening Nov. 2, offering meals at its 980 Prime steakhouse, tours of local attractions and entertainment featuring former Tonight Show host Jay Leno and emerging country star Tenille Arts. The Chamonix plans 10 more shows by April that will feature big-name acts to attract more customers and guests to the casino and hotel and complement a major television advertising campaign.
Cripple Creek, about an hour’s drive west of Colorado Springs in Teller County, already is seeing benefits from the Chamonix.
For instance, since the new hotel and casino complex opened, gamblers are spending more in Cripple Creek’s 12 casinos.
During the first nine months of 2024, as the Chamonix debuted in phases, casino revenue in Cripple Creek jumped by 10.2% to $138.6 million when compared with the same period last year, according to Colorado Division of Gaming reports.
By comparison, casino revenue in Black Hawk rose just 1.1% during the same period, while revenue from casinos in Central City fell 4.4%. Under Colorado law, casinos are allowed only in Black Hawk, Central City, Cripple Creek and two Native American reservations.
Other gaming establishments in Cripple Creek also have noticed an impact driven by the Chamonix.
Officials from publicly traded Century Casinos say their gaming hall, across Bennett Avenue from the Chamonix, has benefited from a growing number of visitors to Cripple Creek since the new hotel opened, according to what they’ve told stock analysts during quarterly earnings calls this year. A spokeswoman for the Golden Nugget Cripple Creek Hotel & Casino also confirmed visitor numbers in the city have increased.
The Chamonix follows a similar strategy blazed by casino developers in Black Hawk, beginning with the opening of a 535-room hotel tower in the Ameristar Casino in 2009, followed by a 516-room hotel complex and spa in the Monarch Casino Resort in 2020. Revenue generated last year from 15 casinos in Black Hawk, about 40 miles west of Denver, was more than five times what Cripple Creek’s 12 gaming halls produced.
“We thought we could do the same thing here. There wasn’t anything like that (Ameristar or the Monarch Casino Resort Spa) here in Cripple Creek,” Lee said. “Hotels are very important in this market — we have 300 rooms and suites that would rival anything in Vegas. I want to reinvent Cripple Creek.”
Construction of large resort hotel-casino complexes followed a series of changes in Colorado gambling laws that began in 2009; bet limits were increased from $5 to $100, casinos were allowed to operate 24 hours a day and permitted to add roulette, craps and other table games. Investors also increased their bets on Colorado casinos significantly after the legalization of sports betting in the state in 2020 and elimination of all bet limits the following year.
Occupancy at the Chamonix, which Lee hopes will win a four-star rating from major hotel ratings groups, has grown steadily from 2,000 to 3,000 room nights a month from January through April to more than 8,000 room nights in September and about 7,500 in October, according to results that Full House shared with stock analysts in November. The casino’s monthly gaming revenue also more than doubled during the same period.
Lee told stock analysts during an August conference call that Chamonix earned a small profit during the second quarter, which he expects will grow over the next several years as marketing efforts attract more visitors to the hotel and casino.
“We are attracting customers from Denver, especially on the south side such as Parker and Centennial, because we are equidistant from them as they are to Black Hawk,” Lee said during his interview with The Gazette. “The hotel is really just opening. Over the summer, it was a matter of telling people we were here. We started an advertising campaign just after the election and will spend $1.2 million over the next five months. We also have three people booking meetings for weekdays.”
Lee is wagering that Full House can attract gamblers on weekdays by offering free rooms and that gamblers then will spend at least twice the cost of that room, or more, on the casino floor — or about double what the average gambler now spends in Cripple Creek.
To help fill rooms on weekdays, Chamonix also has hosted a handful of association and corporate meetings, such as the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Rocky Mountain Death Investigators Conference and several dart competitions.
Chad Beynon, who heads stock research for New York-based Macquarie Capital, called the Chamonix “a cut above the local competition” in a research opinion to Macquarie’s clients after touring the hotel-casino with some of his company’s other stock analysts in July. He described the property as “luxurious and modern, while suites at the 300-room hotel were spacious with high-end finishes” — though he added that building up the property’s customer database will take time.
Lee estimates the Monarch Casino Resort Spa in Black Hawk now generates about $100 million annually in profit for its Reno, Nevada-based parent company, Monarch Casino & Resort Inc.
As a result, he expects Chamonix, about half the size of Monarch, to eventually generate $50 million in profit annually for Full House. That process will take two to three years to play out as the company builds its database of potential customers, which numbered 145,000 in November, Lee said.
His long-term vision for Cripple Creek is for it to become a western version of Virginia’s Colonial Williamsburg, a living history museum that covers more than 300 acres and includes hundreds of restored and recreated buildings staffed by historical reenactors to bring the 18th century to life. Lee sees Cripple Creek as “a gold mining town with a modern, luxurious hotel that complements the history of the place” with its museums, mine tours and other attractions.
The Chamonix isn’t the only major new investment underway or planned in Cripple Creek by the city’s casino and hospitality industry. Among the new projects:
• Texas billionaire and restaurant mogul Tilman Fertitta bought the former Wildwood Hotel & Casino nearly two years ago, rebranded it as part of his Golden Nugget Casino chain and has spent much of the time since then upgrading the casino and soon will begin renovating its two hotels.
Since acquiring the former Wildwood property, his Fertitta Entertainment has redesigned the casino’s interior, installed new slot and table games as well as plush seating and replaced the gaming hall’s restaurant with a Saltgrass Steakhouse, one of the company’s many restaurant brands. The company also expanded its loyalty program to include the Cripple Creek casino, allowing players to redeem points at Golden Nugget casinos or its more than 500 restaurants.
Golden Nugget recently opened Bean & Bread, a deli offering to-go pastries, sandwiches and coffee, in the casino and soon will complete a renovation of Bar 46, its video poker bar. The company said via email that renovations also are planned at the casino’s 102-room hotel built in 2021 and the nearby Gold King Mountain Inn, built in 2007, but didn’t offer further details, including the cost and when the work would be completed.
Full House’s Lee said he would be surprised if Fertitta doesn’t have bigger plans for Cripple Creek, noting that the Golden Nugget property has plenty of room for expansion, such as another multistory hotel. Cripple Creek “needs more rooms,” he said.
Golden Nugget said in an email that the company is “always exploring new ways to enhance and elevate our guests’ experience,” but didn’t include any expansion plans.
• Rocky Mountain Gaming CC, owned by Joseph Canfora, Michael Gaughan and David Ross, bought Johnny Nolon’s and Colorado Grande casinos, which include 360 slot machines, seven hotel rooms and several restaurants and employ about 150 people. Canfora was owner of the Wildwood Hotel & Casino before selling it in 2022; Gaughan owns the South Point Hotel, Casino and Spa in Las Vegas; Ross is the former CEO of Affinity Gaming.
“I spent a lot of years in Cripple Creek and know the market,” Canfora said. “I think we will benefit by being sandwiched between the big guys (Chamonix and Golden Nugget). Cripple Creek has so much opportunity as a community and (tourist) destination. I’m betting on that. It has all the ingredients for continued growth to take the city and surrounding area to the next level and become an unbelievable tourist destination.”
Canfora said Rocky Mountain plans to renovate both casinos with new paint and carpeting, new slot machines, new loyalty management and marketing software and other upgrades to “update and modernize the gaming floor,” while catering mostly to local customers.
• Century Casinos is spending up to $1.1 million to upgrade the primary entrance to its casino to provide a larger, more expansive stairway. The company said plans to renovate the Palace Hotel, across the street from the casino in Cripple Creek, will move forward when “we better understand the market demand for incremental hotel rooms,” Andreas Terler, Century’s executive vice president of U.S. operations, said in a November email.
• The Double Eagle Hotel and Casino, which in November resolved a nearly 2-year-old legal dispute over its ownership, recently completed a two-year, $1 million renovation of its hotel that included replacing bedding, televisions and carpeting in some rooms. It also plans to open a sports betting area by year’s end as part of a new partnership with Fanatics Sportsbook, said Michael Smith, CEO of Double Eagle’s parent company, Colorado Casino Resorts.
The casino is “always updating our gaming floor with new product (slot machines)” and has benefitted from the growing number of visitors to Cripple Creek drawn by the Chamonix, Smith said. The Double Eagle’s 158 hotel rooms make it Cripple Creek’s second largest after the Chamonix, while its casino features more than 400 slot machines and table games.
• Triple Crown Casinos, which owns the Brass Ass, McGills and Midnight Rose casinos in Cripple Creek, had planned to build a 105-room, six-story hotel attached to the Brass Ass, but the company has told city officials the project remains on hold. Triple Crown is the city’s largest casino operator with 711 slot machines and table games. A company spokeswoman declined to comment on its plans for the hotel or upgrades to its casinos.
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