Harrah’s Cherokee Valley River Completes Its $275 Million Bet

$275 million later, Harrah’s Cherokee Valley River is no longer a one-tower stop off U.S. 64. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians finished the Murphy, North Carolina, build in early 2025, adding 296 hotel rooms, a 10-table poker room, and a rooftop kitchen with Gordon Ramsay’s name on the door.

Georgia still has no casinos. Tennessee still has none. That vacuum is what the tribe paid to fill overnight, not just with extra slots.

A $275 Million Bet on Overnight Guests

The original casino opened in September 2015 for $110 million, a seven-story hotel and a compact floor aimed at Atlanta, Chattanooga, and Knoxville drivers. General manager Lumpy Lambert later called that first phase pretty bare-bones. A $13 million, 38,000-square-foot UltraStar wing in 2017 added bowling and a bar. It was still a day-trip building.

On Sept. 29, 2022, tribal officials broke ground on a project whose budget was more than double the original casino. Then-Principal Chief Richard Sneed stood on the site and tied the spend to tribal income, not to a ribbon cutting.

The project that we stand poised to break ground on today is a message to our ancestors, that we are continuing the good work that they began so long ago, and was made possible by their sacrifice.

Richard Sneed, Principal Chief, Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, September 2022 groundbreaking

Lambert told the same crowd there was nothing like the planned rooftop restaurant in the region. The wager was simple: if Georgia and Tennessee players already drove two hours, give them a room, a spa, and a reason not to drive home after the pit closed.

THE BUILD CALENDAR

1. September 29, 2022: Tribe breaks ground on the $275 million Murphy project.
2. May 22, 2024: Expanded casino floor and 10-table World Series of Poker room open.
3. Fall 2024: Five-story, 1,300-space parking deck with 10 chargers opens.
4. Early 2025: 12-story Valley Tower is finished; rooms listed from March.
5. May 8, 2025: Ramsay’s Kitchen opens on the 12th floor.

Robins & Morton of Hoover, Alabama, ran the job for JCJ Architecture. Project director Nick Dill said the contractor had worked with the tribe and the Tribal Casino Gaming Enterprise for years. Crews poured nearly 20,000 cubic yards of concrete across more than 250 pours and used prefabricated wall panels to dry in the tower faster.

What Valley Tower Added in Murphy

The new tower is 12 stories and more than 185,000 square feet. It sits beside the original River Tower, which held about 300 rooms. Lambert, walking a hard-hat tour on Sept. 23, 2024, put the addition in one line: “The new tower will be the Valley Tower. It’s 296 rooms.” Combined inventory now approaches 600.

Rooms come in double-queen and king layouts, most looking toward the Nantahala National Forest. Valley Tower Deluxe rooms carry the usual coffee maker, mini-fridge, and Wi-Fi. Premium kings add a sleeper sofa and a bistro table. River Tower still sells a 380-square-foot luxury king. All rooms are non-smoking.

INSIDE VALLEY TOWER

• Hotel rooms: 296 more keys in king and double-queen layouts, with mountain views on most floors.
• Indoor pool: Heated, year-round, on the mezzanine, open 5:30 a.m. to 11 p.m., with floor-to-ceiling glass.
• Fitness floor: Also on the mezzanine, with treadmills, bikes, and free weights.
• Spa and salon: The 9,600-square-foot Valley River Spa by Mandara sits on the first floor, with six treatment rooms, plunge pools, a sauna, a steam room, and a salon.
• Rooftop dining: A 12,000-square-foot restaurant and terrace on 12, later branded Ramsay’s Kitchen.

Lambert said in 2024 that the restaurant, spa, and a new retail shop would trail the rooms into 2025, and that is how it landed. He also said some guests had peeled off to other casinos while cranes sat on the lot, and that he expected the new keys and service to pull them back. “Speaking of views, it looks pretty nice,” he said from the unfinished tower.

Ramsay’s Kitchen Took the Twelfth Floor

The celebrity-chef piece was in the 2022 pitch, one of three U.S. restaurants on that model, before the name went public. Gordon Ramsay and Caesars confirmed the Murphy kitchen in October 2024. It opened Thursday, May 8, 2025, months after the first Valley Tower keys turned.

I’m delighted to have Ramsay’s Kitchen open at Harrah’s Cherokee Valley River, part of such a beautiful landscape in North Carolina. Ramsay’s Kitchen is a very personal restaurant, that brings together some of my favorite dishes all on one menu. It’s elegant, yet approachable, and I am so pleased to share this new option with our guests.

Gordon Ramsay, chef, Harrah’s Cherokee Valley River release

The room is 12,000 square feet, with indoor seats, an outdoor terrace, an exhibition kitchen, and a 19-seat bar and wine cellar. The property said it can host more than 190 guests. Signature plates on the Caesars menu include Beef Wellington, jumbo lump crab cakes, pan-seared scallops, and sticky toffee pudding. You do not have to hold a hotel key to book it.

Lambert called the room casual, inviting, and extraordinary, and said the point was to put Ramsay’s cooking on this property, not to copy the food hall at the larger Cherokee resort. Ramsay’s Kitchen on the twelfth floor is the clearest proof that Murphy was being sold as a stay, not a pit stop. The chef’s own listings now show the Murphy kitchen closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays, with Monday and Thursday-through-Sunday service from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m.

The New Floor Holds a 10-Table Poker Room

Gaming came first, because that is still how the building pays for itself. The floor addition is 25,000 square feet. Caesars’ 2025 market sheet puts the Murphy casino at 75,000 square feet with more than 1,300 games. The opening package in May 2024 added 300 slot machines, eight live tables, a 22-seat center bar with nine tabletop games, and a larger motorcoach lobby.

The poker room was the ask players had made for years. It is a 10-table World Series of Poker room running eight-handed cash games, with Texas Hold’em as the main spread and weekly tournaments after the first weeks of cash-only play. Lambert said the room had already taken in more than 800 players in its first two weeks. A visiting operator who detoured from a Chattanooga-area baseball trip that July found cash games up and a full pit two months after the addition opened. The smoke-free floor is part of why that room feels tighter than a typical regional casino, and why Atlanta drivers who already made the run now have a night game that is not the flagship an hour up the road.

Parking was the quiet failure of the old site. Lambert had said the lot was sending people elsewhere during construction. The finished answer is a five-story, 1,300-space deck with 10 electrical chargers and covered access to the floor. Robins & Morton’s project record puts the whole job at more than 670,000 square feet of new construction across hotel, casino, and deck.

WHAT OPENED, AND WHEN

A Caesars Sportsbook, opened in 2021 as North Carolina’s first on-site sportsbook, still sits on the property, and the UltraStar center still handles bowling and arcade traffic that never touches a felt table.

Nine Hundred Builders Met a Housing Crunch

The local pitch was jobs in a county that does not have many private payrolls this size. Lambert said more than 900 people worked the site, and that the hotel, restaurants, and facilities side would add about 100 permanent jobs on top of hires already made for the new floor. Hourly starting pay was set at $15. The casino counted about 1,000 employees before the first shovel. Between labor, lodging, food, materials, and tool rentals, the project was projected to put $35 million into the local economy, a figure Lambert repeated on the 2024 tour.

THE MURPHY PAYROLL

• Construction: More than 900 workers across the job, with local trades used where the tribe could find them.
• Permanent hires: About 100 jobs in hotel, food and beverage, and facilities, plus floor hires already made in 2024.
• Pay floor: $15 an hour to start, with tuition help and a path into other Harrah’s Cherokee roles.
• Local spend: $35 million tied to labor, housing, food, and building costs during construction.

Murphy itself had fewer than 2,000 residents when the ground broke. Cherokee County had about 15,300 people of working age. County manager Randy Wiggins said the employment effect of the first casino had already been huge. Winter unemployment that had sat above 11% in early 2013, before the original build, had a record low of 3.9% in December 2019.

The same week, the county’s tourism officer, Cabrina Horton, said casino workers she knew often drove a long way because rentals in town were scarce and asking $1,200 to $1,500 a month. The casino sits on federal trust land, so it does not pay occupancy or property tax. Spillover rooms at non-tribal hotels do. That is the other half of the wager: a 12-story tower in a housing market that was already tight before 100 more jobs posted.

Georgia and Tennessee Still Have No Casinos

The catchment has not moved. Atlanta is about two hours south. Chattanooga is about 90 minutes west. Knoxville is about two hours northwest. The flagship Harrah’s Cherokee resort is about an hour northeast, which makes a two-property trip easy for anyone with a second night. Caesars’ 2025 sheet for both Cherokee properties together lists 1,535,300 customer visits, 2,330 hotel rooms, 3,657 team members, and $200 million in combined wages and benefits. Valley River is the smaller of the two, and it is the one built on the Georgia line.

At the 2022 groundbreaking, Harrah’s Cherokee regional senior vice president Brooks Robinson named the rivals out loud. He said the company was watching a project outside Charlotte and another outside Bristol, Virginia, a nod to the Catawba Two Kings casino in Kings Mountain and Hard Rock in Bristol. “We are very aware that there’s competition on the horizon for us,” he said. The tribe was already buying outside the mountains: $250 million for Caesars Southern Indiana, and a 49.5% stake through EBCI Holdings in a $650 million Caesars project in Danville, Virginia.

Those hedges matter because the Murphy tower only works if Georgia and Tennessee keep refusing brick-and-mortar casinos. They still do. Tennessee allows licensed sports betting on phones and still bars casinos. Georgia still has no commercial or tribal casino floor. So the 296 new rooms, the 10 poker tables, and the 12th-floor Wellington are doing the job they were funded to do. They hold overnight money that used to drive home. They do not make the regional monopoly immortal, and the tribe did not pretend they would.

Lambert said the new areas would carry Cherokee history, language, and stories, not just more felt. The building is open. The kitchen is taking names. The next test is whether those Georgia plates keep coming up the mountain now that the crane is gone.

Frequently Asked Questions

When Did the Harrah’s Cherokee Valley River Expansion Open?

It opened in stages. The casino floor and WSOP poker room opened May 22, 2024, the 1,300-space parking deck followed in fall 2024, Valley Tower was finished in early 2025 with rooms sold from March, and Ramsay’s Kitchen opened May 8, 2025. The indoor pool is on the Valley Tower mezzanine and lists daily hours of 5:30 a.m. to 11 p.m.

How Many Hotel Rooms Does Harrah’s Cherokee Valley River Have Now?

Valley Tower added 296 rooms to the original River Tower of about 300, so the hotel now holds approaching 600 keys. Caesars sells Valley Deluxe two-queen rooms, Valley Premium kings with a sleeper sofa, and River Tower luxury kings at 380 square feet. There are no suites in the current room list.

Does Harrah’s Cherokee Valley River Have a Gordon Ramsay Restaurant?

Yes. Ramsay’s Kitchen opened May 8, 2025, on the 12th floor of Valley Tower, with indoor seats, a rooftop terrace, and a 19-seat bar. Gordon Ramsay Restaurants lists the Murphy location closed Tuesday and Wednesday, serving 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. the other five days, and reservations are required.

Who Owns Harrah’s Cherokee Valley River Casino?

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians owns it. Caesars Entertainment operates it under the Harrah’s brand, as it does the larger sister resort in Cherokee, N.C. The tribe’s business arm, EBCI Holdings, has also bought Caesars Southern Indiana and taken a stake in Caesars Virginia in Danville.

Does Harrah’s Cherokee Valley River Have a Poker Room?

Yes. A 10-table World Series of Poker room opened May 22, 2024, with eight-handed cash games, Texas Hold’em as the main spread, and weekly tournaments. The original 2015 casino had no dedicated poker room, so this is the first time Murphy has had a standing WSOP product of its own.