The Bay Mills Resort and Casino resort and casino complex announced the completion of a five-year expansion project. The official opening ceremony for the new facilities took place on January 29, and they became available to visitors on January 31.
The project is being positioned as a major upgrade to a tribally operated tourism destination run by the Bay Mills Indian Community. The amount of investment is described in reports as multi-million-dollar, but the exact amount was not disclosed, leaving open questions about the cost structure and payback timeline.
The resort’s geography and the remoteness factor
The resort is located in Waiska Bay on the southeastern shore of Lake Superior, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. This location is closely tied to the region’s scenic routes and Lake Superior’s shoreline, which makes seasonal tourism a logical focus.
At the same time, the geography is also a constraint. The distance from major urban agglomerations and transportation hubs intensifies competition with properties in the Lower Peninsula, where population density is higher and the trip is shorter for a mass flow of guests. In this context, the expansion looks like an attempt to offset the distance with service quality and a broader set of experiences.
Room inventory and new recreation areas
A key result of the modernization was an increase in room inventory. The hotel added 135 new rooms and suites, expanding its ability to accommodate groups and peak-season arrivals.
After the new space came online, the total room inventory at Bay Mills Resort and Casino stands at 270 rooms. For the regional market, this is a notable scale, but direct comparisons with the state’s largest resort clusters are difficult due to differences in traffic and seasonality.
New amenities for different stay scenarios
The expansion affected not only accommodations but also leisure infrastructure. The updated part of the complex lists the following new additions:
- spa area
- indoor pool and splash pad
- indoor and outdoor saunas
- indoor and outdoor hot tubs
- fitness center
- arcade
- additional dining options
The set looks like an attempt to cover several scenarios at once, from short weekends to family vacations and winter trips, when some activities move indoors. At the same time, details on the capacity of the areas and on the format of spa services have not yet been specified, and these are usually what determine real comfort during peak hours.
What management says about the goals of the expansion
Resort General Manager Richard LeBlanc linked the launch to improving the guest experience and to the project’s broader role for the county. According to him, this is an important milestone that raises the level of service and opens a new era of luxury, entertainment, and local pride for Michigan’s Eastern Upper Peninsula.
Whitney Gravelle, President of the Bay Mills Indian Community, emphasized that the expansion was the result of many years of work and a shared vision. She also noted that the community has historically been a leader in the gaming industry and expressed an intention to continue that legacy through the upgraded complex.
An early start in the state’s tribal gaming
The historical part of the argument is indeed weighty. The Bay Mills tribe was among the first to enter into a compact with the state for Class III casino gaming, that is, a format with slot machines and table games modeled on commercial casinos.
In 1993, Bay Mills was among seven sovereign nations that reached an agreement with Michigan on the right to develop such games on their lands. This early access to the market is often seen as a strategic advantage, although over the long run, location, marketing, and transportation accessibility prove decisive.
Why it has become harder to compete
Over time, Bay Mills Resort and Casino began to lag noticeably behind a number of other tribal properties in Michigan. Several factors come into play at once, and some of them are difficult to manage.
Among the key reasons most often cited are remoteness, a long winter and steady snowfall, as well as the stronger positions of properties in the Lower Peninsula, which is easier for most state residents to reach. In such conditions, expanding the hotel and adding year-round recreation areas look like a bet on maintaining interest not only through gaming, but also through a full-fledged resort program.
The market in numbers based on 2024 results
According to the Michigan Gaming Control Board, the gross gaming revenue of Bay Mills Resort and Casino in 2024 amounted to about $18.7 million. The casino includes about 600 slots, about 12 tables, and DraftKings Sportsbook.
In the market’s reporting picture, Bay Mills ranked last among the 12 tribes offering Class III gaming in Michigan. The leader was the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe, which, with three casinos, posted $329.7 million, underscoring the scale gap and, likely, the difference in tourist flow.
A separate note on online games and betting
Online gambling and online sports betting, operated by tribal partners, are regulated by state law and are not included in tribal gaming revenue figures. At the same time, they practically do not affect casino visitation, whose task is to be one of the complex’s tourist magnets. Modern tourists are increasingly choosing the land-based casino format because they are primarily oriented toward experiences.
Of course, online casinos offer a wide variety of advantages, from a broad selection of games to a wide variety of bonuses. In addition, they attract players with games featuring fundamentally new mechanics—this includes Plinko, Wheel of Fortune, and crash games such as Lucky Jet, Aviator, Jet X.
The promotion of these titles happens thanks to aggressive advertising, including through bonuses offered by numerous platforms. Industry-site data helped us verify this. After we studied them, as well as an open site featuring online-casino promo codes for Lucky Jet, we saw how actively this product is being promoted. In fact, its advertising is comparable in scale to video game advertising. And it is impossible to find an equivalent of such entertainment in a land-based casino.
And yet the popularity of land-based casinos among tourists remains high. How can that be? The thing is that many iGaming fans ultimately decide to visit a land-based casino. As for tourists, most of them view gambling leisure as part of the travel experience. You can play there year-round, which adds to the property’s appeal.
What operates on the property year-round
In addition to the casino and hotel, the complex retains a set of permanent infrastructure that supports the resort format, not just a gaming floor:
- a 124-site RV park
- the 18-hole Wild Bluff Golf Course
- four restaurants and bars
This set helps distribute demand across different types of recreation. However, the effectiveness of this model largely depends on seasonal logistics and on how diverse the services available will be during periods of bad weather.
The winter season and summer routes near Waiska Bay
In winter, the Upper Peninsula lives to the rhythm of snow. With average snowfall of about 100 inches per year, the resort emphasizes snowmobile trails, and the trails around the golf course are used for snowshoeing and cross-country skiing.
In the warm season, activity shifts toward trips around the region and natural locations. Among the popular destinations near the resort are usually Tahquamenon Falls, Soo Locks, and Pt. Iroquois Lighthouse, which add an excursion component to the resort stay without being tied to gaming.
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