South Florida's Seminole Casinos, Calder Casino To Open Friday
HOLLYWOOD (CBSMiami) - Gamblers will once again be calling on Lady Luck when many of South Florida's popular casinos Re-open their doors on Friday.
The Big Easy in Hallandale Beach will open at 10 a.m.
Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood, Seminole Casino Coconut Creek, and Seminole Classic Casino will reopen at noon.
The Calder Casino will open at 5 p.m.
The Magic City Casino in Miami will open Friday morning as well
When the Seminoles open their gaming rooms, it will be under strict new "Safe and Sound" guidelines.
Watch CBS4's Hank Tester's report:
Temperature checks have been added to the main entrance. Anyone with a temperature of 100.4 or above will not be allowed to enter. Employees, as well as guests, will be required to wear masks.
Masks will be provided to guests, as needed.
To help ensure social distancing on the casino floor, thousands of alternating slot machines will be turned off.
New plastic barriers will divide players at table games, poker games, and customer service areas.
Each casino has a "Safe and Sound Clean Team" that will clean and disinfect surfaces throughout the casino complexes, with special emphasis on high-touch surfaces and common areas.
Hand-sanitizing stations will be available on the casino floors, at the entrances, and throughout the casino complexes.
The casinos will be operating at 50 percent capacity.
Calder Casino, the first South Florida casino to voluntarily suspend operations ahead of the government-mandated closures, will also focus on social distancing and sanitizing to keep guests safe.
There will be mandatory temperature checks at the door for all employees and guests. Masks must be worn by everyone inside the casino.
Staffers will increase their frequency of cleaning high touch surfaces, like door handles and slot machines. The casino said nearly every other slot machine will be turned off.
Plastic dividers have been installed in areas of high touch transactions and hand sanitizer dispensers and sanitary wipes will be widely available.
At The Big Easy, new health security protocols include temperature check cameras at the entrance. Anyone with a temperature of 99.5 or above will not be allowed to enter. Other measures include spaced out gaming machines and new social distancing procedures for playing poker, and masks for everyone.
The other casino in Hallandale Beach, The Casino at Gulfstream Park, is set to open June 18th
Las Vegas, the gambling capital of the U.S. is having a better comeback than anticipated and that could bode well for South Florida casinos.
CBS 4 spoke with Steve Bourie who wrote the American Casino Guide which outlines everything you need to know about every casino in the country.
"Casinos cater to older customers so they may be a little cautious to return to casinos so it could affect their bottom line," said Bourie from his Hollywood Florida home.
"But locals are likely to come back sooner than Vegas because you have to take a plane to get there, " he says
Bourie expects South Florida casinos to offer incentives to bring back customers.
"The casinos will be more aggressive in marketing to offer better benefits to entice players to come back because players may be nervous in an enclosed environment," he says.
