North Carolina’s newest casino, Catawba Two Kings Casino, opened its doors in July 2021. Owned by the Catawba Indian Nation and operated by Delaware North, the casino is located in Kings Mountain, about a half-hour drive southwest from Charlotte near the border with South Carolina.
While the Catawba Two Kings Casino does not offer live table games, it does features hundreds of slots and electronic table games. It also has a retail sportsbook, one of only three such locations in the state. Expansion continues on the property, with additional slots, live table games, and other amenities part of the plan.
Here’s a rundown of everything you can expect to find when you take Exit 5 off Interstate 85 and visit Catawba Two Kings Casino.
Catawba Two Kings Casino details
- Address: 538 Kings Mountain Blvd., Kings Mountain, NC 28086
- Operator: Delaware North (owned by the Catawba Nation)
- Phone: 704-750-7777
- Hours: 24 hours a day, seven days a week
- Minimum gambling age: 21 years old
- Casino games: Slots, video poker, sports betting
- Sportsbook: Yes
- Poker room: No
Catawba Two Kings Casino Updates
The Catawba Two Kings Casino and Resort has finally come under full ownership of the Catawba Nation.
Previously, Sky Boat Gaming had partnered with the Catawba Tribe and held some of the land around the casino, including a parking lot.
In early February, Chief Brian Harris announced that the tribe secured the remaining land from Sky Boat Gaming, giving the Catawba Nation full control over the remaining lands surrounding the casino.
This allows the tribe to move forward with development plans on a permanent casino, with a scheduled completion date in 2026/2027.
Casino games at Catawba Two Kings Casino
Catawba Two Kings Casino first began operating in July 2021 with a “soft opening” in a temporary facility. Expansion began in September, and soon the number of slots had doubled from the initial 500 to around 1,000. Construction continues, with the casino planning three phases and an ultimate target size of 195,000 square feet.
At present, the NC casino has about 30,000 square feet of gambling space. Slots and electronic table games are the current focus at Two Kings Casino, with live table games still to come. The sportsbook also provides another way to gamble.
Slot machines
Catawba Two Kings Casino currently offers 1,000 slot machines, including regular slot games, high-limit slots and progressive jackpot slots. Stakes range from just a penny up to $25 a spin.
Electronic table games
The casino has no live table games at present, although plans involve introducing them as part of an expansion to the permanent facility. Indications are that there will be at least 50 live table games at Catawba Two Kings Casino, perhaps more. Meanwhile, there are a number of electronic table games available right now.
The casino advertises 12 Dual Roulette machines, an interesting way to play roulette that has recently grown in popularity.
Also available are 34 multi-game machines on which you can choose from the following options:
- Baccarat
- Blackjack (single- or multi-hand)
- Craps
- Dai Bac
- Roulette
The multi-game machines allow you to play multiple games at once, with big-screen monitors available to help follow the action.
Catawba Two Kings Casino sportsbook
Just in time for the start of the 2022 NFL season, the Catawba Two Kings Casino resort opened its own sportsbook. NCSharp took a look inside shortly after it opened.
Technically speaking, the sportsbook is, in fact, 30 International Gaming Technology sports betting kiosks. Guests can visit the kiosks any time, 24 hours a day, in order to place their wagers.
Available North Carolina sports betting options include all of the major professional leagues and college conferences, including football, basketball, baseball, hockey, golf, soccer, auto racing, and mixed martial arts.
Amenities at Catawba Two Kings Casino
The amenities at Catawba Two Kings Casino are fairly thin at present, although once the property finishes its multi-phase construction, there should be more available in this regard.
Right now, the games on the casino floor are the primary attraction. However, there is also one dining option. The Little Cafe is open 24 hours a day and serves sandwiches, pizza, wraps, cookies, and chips.
The casino additionally has a selection of draft beer and wine available, plus bottled soda, juice, coffee, and tea.
There is no hotel on the property — not yet, anyway. For now, though, visitors can stay at area hotels, several of which have deals with the casino to provide discounts to participants in the casino’s rewards program. The casino additionally can arrange bus tours for groups wishing to visit and needing transportation.
Lucky North Club rewards program
The rewards program at Catawba Two Kings Casino is the Lucky North Club. Signing up is free, and once you join the program, you begin accumulating points every time you visit Catawba Two Kings and play the games.
The program is tier-based, meaning that as you accumulate points, you ascend through the tiers, with the benefits increasing as you move up. The tiers are as follows:
- Ruby
- Emerald
- Sapphire
- Diamond
- Black Diamond
Several other casino resorts participate in the Lucky North Club program, and benefits include discounted rooms or even fully comped two-night stays at participating locations. US-based properties that participate in the program are located in Arkansas, Florida, New York and West Virginia, and there’s a Lucky North Club property in Australia, as well.
When you sign up to join the Lucky North Club at Catawba Two Kings Casino, find out if the casino offers any drawings for first-time members. In the past, the casino has had daily drawings in which it has given $1,000 to new Lucky North Club members.
History of Catawba Two Kings Casino
When the Catawba Nation first opened the Catawba Two Kings Casino as a temporary facility on July 1, 2021, the event was the culmination of nearly a decade of planning and legal wrangling involving the tribe, the state of North Carolina and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.
The Cherokees are the only federally recognized tribe located in North Carolina, as the Catawba tribe is headquartered just across the state line in South Carolina. However, the Catawbas have history in NC as well, claiming ancestral ties to a nearly 17-acre territory in Kings Mountain.
The Catawba Nation first announced a plan to open a casino on the property in 2013, prompting immediate objections from NC lawmakers, then-Gov. Pat McCrory and the Cherokees. Over 100 members of the House wrote a letter to the US Department of the Interior opposing the plan. State senators likewise objected, McCrory also spoke out publicly against it, and the Cherokees argued that allowing the casino would negatively affect their gambling operations in the western part of the state.
The project appeared doomed in 2018 when the DOI denied the Catawba Nation’s effort to place the Kings Mountain land in trust and allow the tribe to build the casino. That’s when federal lawmakers began to get involved.
In 2019, South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham introduced a federal bill co-sponsored by both North Carolina senators — Richard Burr and Tom Tillis — to allow the casino project to go forward. The bill was the Catawba Indian Nation Lands Act. A similar House bill also appeared, with a handful of NC and SC representatives sponsoring it. Neither piece of legislation advanced, but in March 2020, the DOI reversed its previous decision and allowed the Catawba Nation to obtain the land.
The Cherokee tribe immediately launched a lawsuit against both the Catawba Nation and the DOI. The Cherokees maintained that the DOI had violated federal law by granting the South Carolina tribe the land. They would later add more grievances to their case, including referencing how a developer involved in the new property had donated nearly half a million dollars to President Donald Trump, Tillis, Graham, and other GOP members.
With the outcome of the federal lawsuit still uncertain, the tribe nonetheless broke ground on the Kings Mountain property in July 2020. In April 2021, a federal judge ruled against the Cherokees. Then, in December 2021, US lawmakers revived and passed the Catawba Indian Nation Lands Act as part of the larger National Defense Authorization Act. In January 2022, President Joe Biden signed that bill into law, thereby legally confirming the Catawba’s claim to the Kings Mountain land.
By then, the temporary facility had expanded to include about 1,000 slots and electronic table games. In September 2022, the Catawba Two Kings Casino also added a new sportsbook. Additional construction plans include increasing the casino space to nearly 200,000 square feet, building a 29-story hotel tower, and adding four restaurants and an entertainment center.
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