Newegg has a flash deal on a cheap gaming laptop for under $1,000. You can grab this Asus TUF gaming laptop for $989, $310 off its listing price, and its lowest price ever. Recently, we've seen it show up at other retailers for around $1,250, so this is a pretty good deal on a gaming laptop that can take a hit or two. We just wouldn't recommend purposely hitting it.
This Asus TUF 705DU gaming laptop comes with an AMD Ryzen 7 3750H, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD with a GTX 1660 Ti graphics card. The laptop uses a big 17.3-inch 1080p 120Hz IPS display that should ensure smooth-looking gameplay, and the hardware should handle medium to high presets at 60+ fps on most games. The TUF gaming laptop is a reliable system for $989. My one sticking point is it has a 720p webcam, which isn't great, so you might consider investing in one with the cash you save.
The TUF series of laptops use MIL-STD-810 military construction, which means is that it can take a little more abuse than your standard gaming laptop along with pretty dust resistant; it's suited for the messy, clumsy gamer in the house.