“It’s intended to be an integrated resort,” said Ryan Eller, chief executive of Empire Resorts, which owns the casino, as he conducted a tour of the property. “Not only one of the most luxurious options on the East Coast, but one that addresses a wider range of customers with golf, dining, entertainment and a family option.”

Proponents have been talking about casinos as a solution for the flagging Catskills economy ever since the area went into decline in the 1970s. For decades the hotels and bungalows crumbled on the side of the local roads as developers and politicians proposed as many as six tribal casinos. But little happened, until now.

A publicly traded company, Empire Resorts is controlled by KT Lim, chairman of Genting Berhad, one of the world’s largest gambling and resort companies.

Genting operates massive casino resorts in Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Birmingham, England. More recently, it has pushed into the United States, with a casino in Las Vegas and Resorts World New York, an electronic slot machine parlor at the Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens.

In November, workers began installing 2,157 electronic slot machines on the 100,000-square-foot casino floor. The machines, with all the latest bells and whistles, cost up to $25,000 apiece. There are also 134 table games and 19 poker tables.

Gamblers will have a view of the forest and hills surrounding the property through large windowed walls.

Almost a quarter of the casino floor is devoted to Asian-oriented table games, such as baccarat and Pai gow. There will be Chinese-speaking dealers and Asian restaurants.

An escalator rises to the poker room, and high rollers can take a private elevator up to a “garden suite” on the third floor, where there will be two-story villas with interior pools, all with their own butlers. The top floor of the hotel has presidential suites that are larger than the average American home.

“It’s about status,” Mr. Eller said, “something you can’t get anywhere else.”

Resorts World New York City claimed the title for highest grossing slots in the country almost the day after it opened.

But that doesn’t mean that the competition for gamblers in the Northeast is getting easier. Between full-scale casinos, tribal casinos and slot parlors, there are now roughly 58 gambling venues in the Northeast, up from 41 a few years ago. There are now more than 20 in New York.

The $440 million Del Lago opened in February and is now expected to fall $100 million short of its $263 million first-year projection. It is competing with both a racetrack casino and two tribal casinos nearby.

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