This letter was sent by email from the Marketing Dept. at Harrah's Rincon about the expansion of the casino hotel and changes to the casino layout.

As fall is now upon us, I wanted to take a few minutes to update you on the progress of our expansion/renovation project at Harrah’s Rincon.

We are nearing completion of the reconfiguration of the entire casino floor. Our goal here was simple. Create a better and more comfortable gaming experience for our casino customers. We believe we’ve accomplished that and we’ve received quite a bit of positive feedback from many of our customers reinforcing that. For those of you who play video poker, we’re beginning the process of replacing many of our older video poker machines. We just made a major purchase of over 100 new video poker machines that we’ll be installing over the next several weeks. These are the same games you love, just on new machines.

As you’re well aware by now our new/expanded pool (Dive) was completed and opened on July 8th as scheduled. Along with the new pool experience, we added a new Mexican restaurant (‘ritas Cantina) and our new taco truck. To be frank, we struggled with the food in ‘ritas for the first few weeks, but if you haven’t been there in the past month, I highly recommend you give it another try. Based on customer feedback, we made quite a few changes to the recipes and I now feel very good about the food and service we’re providing to our customers.

In early December we will open our new convention/meeting/event/entertainment venue we’re simply calling “The Events Center.” This new venue will allow us to do many things. We will be able to conduct meetings/conventions, seat up to 1,000 for dinners, and provide a variety of live entertainment for up to 2,200 people in one showing. At the same time we open this venue we’ll be opening a new bar we’re calling “Corked.” Corked will focus on wines by the glass and craft beers from all over Southern California. We’ll also be able to do smaller scale entertainment in the lounge area at Corked. We’ll start out with live piano music as well as other acoustic musicians. Outside of Corked we will have a patio area that features a fire pit, as well as an area for additional outdoor entertainment.

In early April we will open our new hotel tower that includes an additional 403 rooms. The addition of these rooms will take us to 1,065 total rooms, making us the largest casino resort hotel in California, as well as one of the largest hotels in the state. Along with the new hotel tower, we will be opening Starbucks, which will take the place of Club Cappuccino. We will also be opening a bar (where Club Cappuccino used to reside) that we’re calling “Spiked.” Spiked will be a bar that focuses on cocktails that will be hand crafted, using the freshest ingredients and best liquors in a very modern environment.

You will be hearing a lot more about our future plans in the coming months. Our goal is to become one of the finest resorts in Southern California that provides you with many different experiences depending on your mood. We are working very hard to create an overall resort and gaming experience unlike any you will find outside of Las Vegas.

I’d like to personally thank each of you for your patience and loyalty as we move through this transitional period. Most of the disruption you’ve faced this year is behind us now and we’re in the final stretch of delivering you a world class resort experience unlike any you can find in Southern California. If there is ever anything that I can do for you, or any questions/comments that you would like me to answer/address, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

I wish you all good luck and many jackpots!

Darrell Pilant
Vice President of Operations & Marketing
Harrah’s Rincon Resort & Casino