Snoqualmie Casino Begins $400M Expansion

A $400 million expansion has begun at Washington State’s Snoqualmie Casino. The gaming location is just 30 miles away from Seattle.

The two-year project is expected to bring 1.2 million square feet of renovations. This includes the addition of a 210-room luxury hotel, a 2,000-seat event center, and 22,000 more square feet of gaming space. Two new restaurants, a new 1,500-stall onsite parking structure, and a full-service spa, fitness center and indoor pool are also in the cards.

We could not be more excited to bring this caliber of resort experience to Snoqualmie,” Cumming Group senior project manager Scott Herbert said in a press release.

Designed by Bergman Walls Associates, the expansion is being helmed by the Cumming Group construction consultancy and Skanska, the Seattle-based general contractor that built the original Snoqualmie Casino in 2008.

The Snoqualmie Casino, which currently features 1,700 slot machines and 54 live gaming tables, currently employs around 1,100. The expansion is expected to create about 500 new jobs, 200 of which will be added to the hotel and resort.

The expansion, expected to be completed by Q4 2024, will also include architectural details inspired by Snoqualmie culture, from artwork to a modern slant roof hotel design. That represents the original longhouses of the Snoqualmie Tribe’s ancestors.

“We have continued to strengthen and preserve our cultural traditions, protecting our sacred places, healing our ancestral lands, and establishing enterprises that allow our tribe to provide our families with education, health care, and housing, while also giving back to the community,” Snoqualmie Tribe chairman Robert de los Angeles said in a statement. “This next period of growth at the Snoqualmie Casino allows us to continue advancing those goals.”

The new hotel will be the second owned by the tribe, which in 2019 purchased Snoqualmie’s Salish Lodge and Spa, built-in 1988.

The casino made news this past Memorial Day when it offered a promo for free gasoline. In partnership with radio station KISW, the casino gave five free gallons to the first 99 drivers in line. The promo was unexpectedly met with great excitement, as gas prices across the US have soared this summer.

Oh, heck yeah!” Lisa McConnell, a Snoqualmie Casino employee, told KOMO, a local TV station. “Free gas. I’m gonna grab it.”

One hopeful patron got in line for the promo at 5:45 am.

“I’m a broke college student,” Hoving, a Bellevue College student, told the TV station. “I need gas for free. It’s crazy out there with how high these prices are.”