Horseshoe Casino Cleveland by the numbers: 15,000 people visit on first full day

CLEVELAND - The Horseshoe Casino Cleveland opened Monday night, with thousands of people waiting hours in line just to roll the dice at Ohio’s first casino.

For the first full day of operations on Tuesday, about 15,000 people were admitted through the casino’s doors. That’s in addition to the 11,000 people there for the opening on Monday night. So far, workers have been letting about 5,000 people into the casino at a time, which is the maximum number of people who can play games simultaneously.

According to the casino, about 8,000 people signed up for new Total Rewards cards. The card offers benefits like free parking at the Cleveland casino’s garage and other deals at the nearly 40 other Caesars Entertainment locations.

On Tuesday night, the Horseshoe Casino Cleveland’s World Series of Poker room was a hit. Bravo Poker Live said it was the second busiest poker room in the country to a room in Los Angeles that has 160 tables. Cleveland’s casino only has 30.

The casino, located in the first four floors of the historic Higbee building, has 2,100 slot machines and 65 table games. But the casino also has a food court with local fare that has also been drawing people in. Between Iron Chef Michael Symon’s B Spot Burgers, Rocco Whalen’s Rosie & Rocco’s and the legendary deli Corky & Lenny’s, about 2,500 meals were served on Tuesday. Those numbers don’t even include those who decided to dine at the Horseshoe’s 400-seat buffet, The Spread.

Casino officials said the casino is expected to bring in about 5 million visitors to downtown Cleveland. The casino employs about 1,600 people and Rock Gaming Chairman Dan Gilbert said more than 90 percent of them are from this community.

An estimated $350 million was invested into the new development.