That’s a quarter century for Niagara Falls casino on Thursday
Published December 7, 2021 at 10:51 am
In two days, Casino Niagara will celebrate a pretty big birthday, marking its 25th anniversary on December 9.
Ironically, for a casino that’s seen over 100 customers, it wasn’t meant to last this long.
While Casino Windsor – now Caesars Windsor – was the first casino to open in Ontario in 1994, Casino Niagara was next up opening December 9, 1996 and was actually just meant to be a stop-gap while Fallsview Casino Resort was still in the planning stages.
When Fallsview eventually did open in June 2004, Casino Niagara was established enough that it just stayed put. In fact, 690 present employees are also still there from Day One.
The casino replaced family fun with adult fun, being built on the former site of Maple Leaf Village amusement park.
While Fallsview dwarfs it in gambling floor space – 200,000 square feet vs 96,000 – as the oldest, it retains a loyal market. The first casino in Ontario to have electronic Roulette, it has over 1,300 slots and over 40 table games – again, less than half of Fallsview’s totals.
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Both casinos are owned by the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation but are both run by Mohegan Gaming and Entertainment, based out of Connecticut.
The commitment by the community to keep Casino Niagara in place was repaid in 2017 when the establishment was spruced up with a $7 million renovation.
The casino tower, shown below, was opened in June 1964 as the Oneida Tower, a steel observation tower built of an open steel frame (the first in Canada), which stood 355 feet. It has a two storey observation deck and two glass enclosed elevators. The top observation deck was partially open specifically so that tourists could get completely unobstructed views of the Niagara Falls.
