This year will go down as the one where two of the most legendary casino properties ever shut their doors for good. But plenty of other national stories put Las Vegas casinos in the headlines in 2024. And some of those weren’t even bad…
FEBRUARY
Vegas Kicks Off Super Bowls
Las Vegas hosted its first Super Bowl in its own NFL stadium, something that, 20 years earlier, was thought to have been impossible due to fears about sports betting’s threat to the integrity of all professional sports.
The Nevada Gaming Control Board reported that $185.6 million was wagered on the big game between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers. The handle easily set a new record, eclipsing the previous all-time mark of $179.8 million set in 2022, when the Los Angeles Rams battled the Cincinnati Bengals.
In addition, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority reported an economic impact close to $1 billion, with net visitor spending of more than $600 million.
Coming off the success of the Golden Knights in the NHL, the Aces in the WNBA, the first F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix and serious talk of both the Oakland A’s and an NBA team relocating to the Strip, Super Bowl LVIII cemented Vegas’ reputation as a sports town.
Oh, and no one accused the San Francisco 49ers of throwing the game.
JULY
Weather Disservice
On July 7 at 3:38 p.m. local time, Las Vegas broke a record no one wanted it to. The National Weather Service (NWS) reported the mercury hit a record-shattering 120°F at the official airport weather station. Las Vegas had already broken its temperature record when it hit 118°F at 2:33 p.m. the same day, the weather service said, besting the 117°F reading recorded on July 19, 2005, and tied on June 30, 2013, June 20, 2017, and July 10, 2021.
Mirage Disappears
On July 17, the casino resort that remade Las Vegas shut its doors. Hundreds of current and former Mirage executives gathered — without the casino resort’s disgraced founder, Steve Wynn, who was conspicuous in his absence — to say a tearful goodbye in front of the porte-cochère. One final eruption from the Stripside volcano ensued before the lights were turned off.
Until 2027, what was in 1989 the world’s largest casino resort will be transformed by its new owners, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, into the second Hard Rock Las Vegas. That includes a 600-suite, guitar-shaped tower out front, where the Mirage volcano once sat in its lagoon.
But while the body will live on, according to thousands of sad social media users with fond memories of the Mirage, it will do so without a soul.
AUGUST
Resorts World of Trouble
On Aug. 15, the Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB) charged Resorts World with failing to adhere to and enforce anti-money laundering laws. Its 12-count, 31-page disciplinary complaint recommended that the Nevada Gaming Commission “take action” against the casino resort’s gaming “license(s), registrations, and/or findings of suitability.”
Since opening in 2021, Resorts World has served as a backdrop for a series of gambling scandals. These scandals resulted in arrests and federal convictions for the sports bookmakers Edwin Ting, Chad Iwamoto and, most famously, Mathew Bowyer.
Bowyer, a Southern California bookie, accepted wagers from Ippei Mizuhara, the former interpreter for LA Dodgers pitcher Shohei Ohtani, who stole $16 million from Ohtani to pay off his gambling debts.
Investigators believe that Mizuhara deposited cash into accounts at Resorts World and Pechanga Resort Casino, a tribal gaming venue in Southern California. That cash was used for casino chips and when the chips were cashed in, the proceeds were directed to Bowyer.
Resorts World was initially given until Dec. 9 to respond to the complaint.
Bowyer, who admitted to laundering money through other people’s bank accounts and running the illegal operation for five years, is scheduled to be sentenced on February 7, 2025.
SEPTEMBER
Wynn Loses Big
Wynn Las Vegas announced on Sept. 6 that it agreed to forfeit $130.13 million to settle its own money-laundering claim. Specifically, the US Department of Justice claimed that it worked with unregulated money transfer enterprises to shift capital for the benefit of the company.
The DOJ outlined several scenarios in which violations at Wynn Las Vegas had ties to China. In one example, a guest of the casino resort would use a proxy to wager their funds for fear that if they bet themselves, they’d run afoul of anti-money laundering laws such as the US Bank Secrecy Act.
The Justice Department said Wynn Las Vegas knowingly allowed such behavior to occur without scrutinizing the moves or reporting them to the appropriate regulators. DOJ also mentioned the “flying money” scheme in which Wynn Las Vegas “facilitated the unlicensed transfer of money to and from China.”
The fine, which was part of a non-prosecution agreement, is believed to be the largest on record for any US-based casino company “based on admissions of criminal wrongdoing,” according to the DOJ.
Sphere Tries Sports
UFC 306, the first sports event held at the Sphere, generated the highest gross revenue that either the venue or the UFC has ever seen. According to UFC, the 10-fight spectacle, staged on Sept. 14, earned $22 million in gate receipts, handily trouncing the $17.7 million gross earned by UFC 205 in 2016. Still, UFC spent $20 million to produce the show at the $2.3 billion venue, so its real profit will need to come from pay-per-view sales.
Though UFC CEO Dana White vowed never to return to the Sphere, he softened his stance on Saturday. He still told the assembled media “no,” but said it was because “I’m under contract with MGM.”
OCTOBER
The Trop Drops
At 2:30 a.m. PT on Oct. 9 — after seven minutes of fireworks and drone animations by Grucci — the Tropicana became the first Las Vegas Strip casino to be imploded since the Riviera in 2016. The Rat Pack-era institution, which opened on April 4, 1957, had closed forever on April 2, 2024.
From the ashes of the implosion will allegedly rise a stadium for the relocated Oakland A’s and a brand new Bally’s casino resort. And both officials for Bally’s and the A’s, including team owner John Fisher, were on hand to tie the implosion to their future plans in the public’s minds. (The “Las Vegas A’s” logo even made its public debut as a projection on at least one of the towers before they came down.)
So far, however, that’s still wishful thinking. The fear of many Las Vegas insiders is that the Strip will be left with another vacant lot — much like the one that has yet to be developed after the Frontier was imploded back in 2007.
NBA Arena Builders Dribble Over to Rio
The Oak View Group (OVG) quietly ended its plans to build a $10 billion, 20K-seat NBA five miles south of the Strip. It then began quietly kicking the tires at the Rio. Unlike the Tropicana, the Rio wouldn’t need to be imploded to host a large sports facility. It sits on more than 88 acres of land, 22 of which it considers excess.
T-Mobile, which seats up to 20K attendees and could easily accommodate a new NBA team, was built on only 16 acres. However, the NHL and NBA seasons overlap, so T-Mobile’s commitment to the Vegas Golden Knights NHL team may not seem ideal to an NBA expansion team.
The switcheroo reportedly prompted Sphere owner James Dolan to sever a Sept. 2023 agreement with OVG over naming rights, since the basketball arena’s new location would place it in direct competition with the Sphere for concert acts.
Strip Casino Revenue Falls
October marked the third time in four months that Nevada casino revenue was lower than in the same month of the previous year. This was the first time this happened since before the pandemic. Las Vegas Strip revenue fell more than 3% to $692 million to mark the Strip’s fourth straight monthly revenue year-over-year decline.
Caesars Sells LINQ Promenade
On Oct. 29, Caesars Entertainment (NASDAQ: CZR) announced that it is selling the LINQ Promenade for $275 million as part of the gaming company’s ongoing debt reduction efforts. A joint partnership comprised of TPG Real Estate and Acadia Realty Trust investment management platform is acquiring the collection of retail and boutiques located near the Caesars-operated LINQ Hotel. That casino resort is not part of the transaction.
NOVEMBER
Strike at Virgin Hotels
The Culinary Union launched its first open-ended strike in over 22 years on Nov. 15, taking 700 workers at Virgin Las Vegas out in an open-ended strike that began Nov. 15th at 5:00am. While this negatively impacted tourism for the rest of the year, it also highlighted concerns about working conditions among hospitality workers.
DECEMBER
Sibella Surrenders Gaming License
On Dec. 19, Scott Sibella, former president of Resorts World Las Vegas and MGM Grand, had his gaming license removed by the Nevada Gaming Commission. The settlement, negotiated by the NGCB a week earlier, effectively ends his career in the casino industry for at least five years.
The agreement settled a three-count complaint filed by the NGCB in April that alleged that Sibella allowed Wayne Nix — a former minor-league baseball player known by Sibella to operate an illegal sports-betting business — to gamble millions of dollars at the MGM Grand from August 2017 through February 2019.
Sibella had already pleaded guilty in January 2024 in federal court for violating the Bank Secrecy Act in relation to the same allegation. (He received one year of probation and a $9.500 fine.) According to that federal statute, Sibella was required to file a suspicious transaction report following each incident of wagering by Nix that he was aware of.
Sibella had been a beloved rising star in the industry who even starred on CBS-TV “Undercover Boss” in 2011. (He posed as an MGM Grand blackjack dealer named Paul Thompson.)
Though the complaint only covered his tenure at the MGM Grand, regulators agreed that the settlement also covers Sibella for any potential violations he committed while presiding over Resorts World.
Resort Fees Outlawed
On Dec. 17, the Federal Trade Commission gave an early Christmas present to consumers who book Las Vegas casino resort stays via online travel agencies.
It passed a bipartisan rule requiring that all hotel resort fees be disclosed to online hotel customers upfront. (Typically, they are tacked onto hotel prices only during online checkout, not advertised as part of nightly room rates.)
“People deserve to know up-front what they’re being asked to pay — without worrying that they’ll later be saddled with mysterious fees that they haven’t budgeted for and can’t avoid,” said FTC Chair Lina Khan.
In Las Vegas, resort fees range as high as $55 per night at properties like Bellagio and Mandalay Bay.
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