Encyclopedia Of Detroit
Greektown Casino-Hotel
Greektown Casino is one of three casinos in Detroit, Michigan and is located in the city’s Greektown Historic District on Monroe Street. It opened on November 10, 2000 after a proposal to establish three casinos in Detroit was approved by voters in 1996.
The building that is home to the casino was originally owned by fur trapper Traugott Schmidt who used it as a fur processing center. In 1985 developers turned the structure into a five-story indoor mall with exposed brick, called Trapper’s Alley. Some of its architectural elements still remain.
Over a three-year period, 2006-2009, the casino enlarged its footprint. In 2007 a 400-room hotel, which includes views of the Detroit River and Canada, was opened adjacent to the casino and next to a new 13-story parking garage with 2,900 parking spaces. In November 2008, additional gaming space opened over Lafayette Street, bringing the casino’s gaming space to a total of 100,000 square feet, which includes almost 3,000 slots, and video poker machines. In November 2009, the casino opened 20,000 square feet of convention space and a 4,000 square foot Grand Ballroom. The Greektown Casino-Hotel complex has several dining locations, as well as additional nearby restaurants and bakeries in the surrounding Greektown Historic District.
The first owners of the casino were the Sault Ste. Marie Chippewa tribe, who held 90 percent, with a group of investors holding the remaining 10 percent. After a bankruptcy, Greektown was eventually bought by Dan Gilbert’s Rock Gaming in 2013. Rock Gaming became Jack Entertainment and in 2016 there was a failed attempt to rename the casino-hotel complex Jack Detroit Casino-Hotel Greektown. In 2018 Gilbert sold the casino for one billion dollars to Vici Properties, out of New York.
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