Wynn Resorts used its second-quarter 2026 earnings call on 5 August to confirm that Wynn Al Marjan Island, the integrated resort under construction in Ras Al Khaimah, will open in September 2027. The company also disclosed that the budget has risen by about $600 million, taking the project to roughly $5.1 billion.
A six-month slip, and the second of the year
The September 2027 date replaces a previous target of the first quarter of 2027, reported elsewhere as March 2027. Khaleej Times and iGaming Business both covered the call and both put the slip at roughly six months. It is the second delay announced in 2026: in May, Skift reported chief executive Craig Billings describing a modest delay and citing supply-chain problems.
What makes the August announcement news is not that the date moved again but that it was confirmed with a reason attached. Anyone relying on older coverage is working from a stale date: a Jerusalem Post piece from 23 March 2026 still referred to a spring 2027 opening.
The construction pause
Construction on the resort was suspended in February 2026 and resumed in March. The suspension followed the outbreak of regional hostilities: US and Israeli strikes on Iran began in late February 2026, after which Iranian forces declared the Strait of Hormuz closed and cross-strait traffic fell by more than 90%, according to Britannica's account of the conflict. Dubai International Airport operations and shipping through the strait were both disrupted.
For a project of this size, that combination is straightforwardly material. A resort being fitted out in Ras Al Khaimah depends on containerised imports of finishes, equipment and gaming fixtures, and on the movement of specialist contractors through regional airports. A month-long stop plus months of degraded logistics does not translate into a month of delay.
Where the extra $600 million went
Billings attributed roughly half of the increase to, in his words, "disruption from the regional conflict, material cost increases, shipping cost increases, and the pre-opening and capitalised interest costs associated with the extended construction timeline." The remainder he put down to remeasurement and trade coordination.
That breakdown is worth reading closely, because two of the items are second-order effects of the delay rather than causes of it. Pre-opening costs and capitalised interest accrue simply because the timeline is longer, which is how a schedule slip converts into a budget increase without anyone buying anything new. Wynn holds a 40% stake in the project and has invested about $1.06 billion to date.
The company's public position remains bullish. Billings told the call: "We continue to believe this will be the most exciting integrated resort opening globally in over a decade."
What the resort is, and is not
Wynn Resorts is the only licensed land-based gaming operator in the UAE. The Al Marjan Island property holds a licence from the General Commercial Gaming Regulatory Authority, granted in October 2024, and when it opens it will be the first casino floor in the Gulf.
It is worth being precise about the scope of that. The licence covers a physical resort in Ras Al Khaimah for guests physically present in it, at a minimum age of 21. It is not an online licence, and it says nothing about the legality of gambling elsewhere in the UAE. Gambling by individuals remains an offence under the UAE Penal Code, Federal Decree-Law 31/2021, with penalties of up to two years' imprisonment and a fine, and deportation possible for expatriate residents. The offshore casino sites this site compares are licensed outside the UAE and are not supervised by any UAE authority — a separate category from Wynn's GCGRA licence in every respect.
Why a 2027 date is still useful information
A September 2027 opening puts the first Gulf casino roughly a year out from now, assuming no further slip. Two previous targets have moved, and the reason for the most recent move — a regional conflict whose ceasefire collapsed on 8 July 2026 after a memorandum signed on 17 June — has not obviously resolved itself into stability. Treat September 2027 as the company's current confirmed plan rather than a fixed date.
For a reader in the region, the practical consequence is that land-based, UAE-supervised casino gaming does not exist yet and will not until at least late 2027. Everything available in the meantime is either the short list of GCGRA-licensed online and lottery products or offshore sites with no UAE recourse.
What this means if you play from the Gulf
Until Wynn Al Marjan Island opens, the only gaming under UAE supervision is the handful of products tracked on our UAE licensed casinos page. Everything else in our UAE online casino guide is licensed abroad, which changes what happens if a withdrawal is withheld or an account is closed. If live tables are what you are waiting for, our live dealer casinos hub covers what exists today rather than in 2027.
