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Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem is planning a massive $90 million expansion that will included added restaurants, slot machines and a much larger poker room.
From the Morning Call:
An expansion the size of two football fields would carry Sands' investment in south Bethlehem to nearly $1 billion, while creating the largest gaming floor among the state's 12 casinos, and expanding a table games business that's already among the most lucrative outside of Las Vegas.
The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board must first approve the project. If given the green light, Sands Bethlehem could start construction as early as January.
An 81 additional table games would boost Sands' stable of tables to more than 300, requiring a special approval from the gaming board because the 2004 gambling law set a 250-table limit, the Morning Call reports.
The poker room expansion would include 30 more tables.
Other highlights from the Morning Call report:
*The Paiza lounge, the private gambling parlor reserved for the biggest table games players, also would get more tables. Minimum bets in Paiza are $100, but some players have multimillion-dollar lines of credit with the casino and often bet tens of thousands of dollars a hand. The project would increase the number of Paiza's tables from 20 to 32.
*Sands' "north expansion" calls for a two-story, 100,000-square-foot addition on the casino's north side. It would make room for 380 more slot machines, 81 more tables and two restaurants — a noodle bar and possibly the Lehigh Valley's first Cheesecake Factory.
- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com
