Wind Creek is back open 24 hours a day; COVID-19 protections still in place

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WSFA) - Guests that visit Wind Creek Casino can now hit the slot machine at any hour of the day once again.

On Oct. 1, Wind Creek began opening their locations for 24 hours a day after limiting their hours due to COVID-19. The Wetumpka location was the first to resume 24 hour operations, Wind Creek’s other properties followed soon after.

In March, Wind Creek Casino closed all of its properties after they announced they had a positive COVID-19 case at their Wetumpka location. Wind Creek reopened their locations in early June with limited capacity and strict COVID-19 safety procedures in place. When they reopened to the public in June, their doors opened at 6 a.m. and closed at 3 a.m.

Wind Creek CEO Jay Dorris said remaining open around the clock still allows each facility enough time to deep clean.

“We do have some guests who, believe it or not, do like to visit during those early morning hours,” Dorris said. “We’re still able to keep our standard of deep cleaning by taking a section down, cleaning it, and then reopening it and moving on to another, but that doesn’t mean we need to close down the entire property.”

During Wind Creek’s shutdown, Dorris said they did not have to lay off any employees at any of their Alabama locations. They did, however, have to lay off many employees at their Bethlehem location in Pennsylvania.

Right now the casino floor is open to the public for four sessions each day, and the casino has cleaning crews deep clean in between sessions in addition to the cleaning efforts that take place at each machine before and after each guest.

Dorris said to accommodate guests, some of their locations have removed buffet tables to make more room for machines that can be placed at a social distance.

“The focus has always been to keep at least six feet of space between the games,” Dorris said. “We’ve used space that we hadn’t used in the past to do that but again its all focused on getting that 6 foot or more of separation.”

Wind Creek also has designated waiting areas with markings to support social distancing at all of their properties.

All guests and team members are required to wear masks at all times in public areas, and all guests and team members are temperature checked prior to entering the building.

“We are going to keep taking the steps that we think help keep people safe and we’ll keep them in place as long we need to,” Dorris said.

Wind Creek also continues to have a “no smoking” policy in place in all indoor public areas, including the gaming floor. The medical health advisors Wind Creek said they consulted advised that they temporarily prohibit smoking because they believe that exhaling smoke could potentially promote the spread of COVID-19.

Updated COVID-19 policies can be found on Wind Creek’s website.

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