California Set to Welcome Vegas-Sized Tribal Casino

A $600 million tribal gaming complex in the Golden State recently opened its doors to the public and rivals some of the Las Vegas Strip’s biggest and best properties. The dazzling new gambling palace is California’s Kern County’s first full-service casino.

Vegas West

There are very few places like Las Vegas, but one area in California is bringing a piece of Sin City to its community, courtesy of a collaborative effort between the Tejon Indian Tribe and the Seminole Tribe’s Hard Rock brand.

Mettler, California, an unincorporated area of Kern County, is just 15 miles south of Bakersfield and had a population of 90 in 2020. However, that is set to change significantly with the arrival of the Hard Rock Casino Tejon.

Phase one of the project opened on November 13th, and it features a 150,000-square-foot gaming floor, which rivals that of the Bellagio’s 152,000-square-foot casino and is only slightly smaller than MGM Grand’s 170,000-square-foot behemoth.

Kern County, known for its agrarian, energy, and military communities, will now have a Las Vegas-style casino added to its list of industries. The Kern County Supervisor, Jeff Flores, deemed it “the biggest private economic development project in the history of the county,” and the region can now “entertain the world.”

Moving forward, plans include a 400-room hotel replete with a pool and spa, as well as a 2,800-seat entertainment venue. More dining and lounge options will also crop up as the next phase of the project is completed, which will eventually bring the complex to a whopping 700,000 square feet.

Long Road to Prosperity

A governmental clerical error in 1979 caused decades of angst for the Tejon Indian Tribe.

Originally settled in 1853 as the Sebastian Indian Reservation, which was established on Rancho El Tejon lands, the tribe had been federally recognized until 1979, when it was inadvertently omitted from the list of federally recognized tribes.

It was an honest mistake and one that should have been easy to rectify. But the bureaucracy of the federal government did not get around to honoring the tribe’s repeated requests for the error to be corrected until 2011.

Once that occurred, the Tejon Indian Tribe began negotiating with casino operators to develop a megaplex on its lands, which is when the Seminole Tribe’s Hard Rock organization was recruited for the job.

“The opening of Hard Rock Casino Tejon is not only a celebration of our Tribe’s heritage and resilience but also a bold step forward in creating opportunity and prosperity for future generations,” said Octavio Escobedo III, chairman of the Tejon Indian Tribe.

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