Petersburg rolls out temporary Live! Casino

A temporary casino with 900 slot machines and 30 table games — but still no poker or a sportsbook — opened in Petersburg in January, as The Cordish Cos. and Bruce Smith Enterprise finish construction on the $1.4 billion Live! Casino & Hotel Virginia mixed-use development, slated for completion in late 2027.

The new casino, a 75,000-square-foot gaming facility under a tent-like canvas tarp near the Interstate 95 and Wagner Road interchange, is the state’s fifth casino. About 500 people are currently employed there, and in its first 10 days, the casino garnered nearly $4.7 million in adjusted gaming revenue, according to the Virginia Lottery.

Petersburg residents approved the project in a 2024 referendum in which more than 80% of city voters endorsed the casino permit.

“We’re going to bring the Live! experience, even in a temporary facility, into operation,” says Rob Norton, Cordish’s gaming group president. “But the really exciting part is that while all this is going on, … we’ll be building our full gaming resort.”

The resort will ultimately cover 445,000 square feet, with a 200-room hotel featuring 25 suites, a 70,000-square-foot convention and event space, a sportsbook, more than a dozen bars and restaurants, a 22-table poker room, 1,600 slot machines and more than 60 game tables.

Developers project the casino will generate about $2.8 billion in economic activity for the region over the next decade, including 6,100 construction jobs, 1,400 permanent positions and $240 million in direct revenue to the city.

The state’s other four casinos delivered $969.1 million in combined revenues last year, up 32% from 2024.

Joanne Williams, director of communications and tourism for Petersburg, says city officials have been in close talks with their counterparts in Danville, where Caesars opened a temporary gaming facility in 2023, about 18 months before the grand opening of its resort. In its early days, Caesars Virginia generated about $2 million in monthly tax revenue.

“A portion of the revenue will be going to schools [and] a portion will stay with the city. We’ll invest some of those dollars in economic development efforts, not only in the corridor where the casino is located, but also in our downtown and other areas of the city,” says Petersburg City Manager John “March” Altman. “When it comes down to it, we have some generational poverty and educational issues that this will allow us to tackle.”