See photos: Potawatomi celebrates opening of permanent sportsbook

Just in time for the Kentucky Derby, one of the biggest sports betting events of the year,  Potawatomi Casino Hotel in Milwaukee on Friday officially unveiled its new 200-seat, Las Vegas-style retail sportsbook.

The two-floor, 6,500-square-foot venue — with an entire wall covered by a massive 2,000-square-foot LED video screen — creates a permanent home for Poto’s sports betting operation, which launched in March 2023 and had been available at self-serve kiosks on the casino’s ground floor and second floor. This new sportsbook takes the place of the 500-seat Northern Lights Theater and the Fire Pit Sports Bar & Grill. Its opening marks a final milestone in the casino’s ongoing $190 million revamp of its first- and second-floor gaming and dining facilities.

Billed as the largest retail sports betting venue in the Midwest, the space has capacity for nearly 420 people. It features an expansive central bar — with built-in counter-top gaming screens — lounge and table seating and a 2,000-square-foot LED screen capable of showing more than 30 sporting events at once. The upper level features a VIP lounge and a professional broadcast studio with audio/video streaming capabilities to be used by radio shows, podcasts and the like.

A new restaurant, “The Kitchen at the Sportsbook,” serves a full menu of all-day brunch, appetizers and an array of salads, sandwiches and burgers. Beverage offerings include 48 beers on tap and 14 specialty cocktails.

The sportsbook venue is sandwiched between the new high limit room — featuring 70 different slot games — and the new 14,000-square-foot poker room. With 14 nine-seat tables and full food and beverage service by The Kitchen, the space brings poker back to Poto after a four-year hiatus in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

These three new spaces make up the lion’s share of the 70,000 square feet of renovations to the casino’s first-floor gaming level, expected to be fully complete by year’s end.

Construction on the first floor renovations began in June 2023 with the demolition of Northern Lights Theater. The project relied on the expertise of more than 75 outside vendors and more than 250 trade workers, managers, architects and engineers as well as direct involvement from casino leaders, including its chief executive officer Dominic Ortiz, who was brought on board in 2021 to shepherd Potawatomi out of the pandemic and to raise its profile as a premiere gaming and entertainment destination in the Midwest. He’s credited with championing the $190 million project.

“Everything to bring this to market, we always challenged ourselves,” said Ortiz of the sportsbook project. “If we saw something that needed to be done better, we didn’t just do it because that’s what we said we were going to do, we went ahead and fought to make it happen, and I think it’s those moments in design and architecture with your teams and crews that really make a space special.”