When casino will be open?
- July 2, 2021
It’s been a rough week for casino owners, with a rash of closures at the Rio Grand in Las Vegas and a handful of bankruptcies across the country.
But the company that owns the Las Vegas Sands casino says it’s coming back to the Sunshine State, with the opening of its Sands Goldmine Resort on Wednesday.
Sands Gold Mine Resort is the first Las Vegas casino to be built in decades, and it will be a new kind of Vegas.
It will have three floors of lounges, a dining room, a gaming floor and a spa.
The hotel is also expected to be the largest in the state and the first in the United States to offer 24-hour concierge service.
It’s a bold move, given the financial troubles that have dogged the casinos and casino industry in recent years.
Sands said in a news release that the casino’s opening would bring $30 billion to the state of Nevada.
Sands says the resort will be the second largest in Nevada, behind the MGM Grand in Carson City.
“The Goldmine will provide an economic driver for the state, as well as a source of revenue for the region, providing jobs, generating taxes and helping the economy in a variety of ways,” Sands spokesman David Pinto said in the news release.
Sands, owned by a holding company called The Caesars Group, said the resort would be “the most economically attractive casino in Nevada” and would bring more than 2,000 jobs to the area.
The resort’s opening is the latest setback for Nevada’s casino industry, which has been battling a wave of bankruptcy.
Nevada has lost its number one slot machine, Las Vegas Bancorp, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this year.
A bankruptcy court judge granted a preliminary injunction against the Bancor, which is owned by MGM Resorts International, last week, preventing the BANCor from shutting down or taking any action that would harm the state.
Sands has already been struggling to survive.
The company had to lay off staff and close some facilities in recent months, including its Las Vegas office and a casino in Reno, Nevada.
The Las Vegas resort’s casino also has been the subject of bankruptcy proceedings, including a bankruptcy filing in September, which closed part of the resort.
In a news conference Wednesday, Sands CEO and chairman John T. Smith Jr. said the company will open the Sands GoldMine Resort on a fully operational basis, with about 2,200 hotel rooms and casinos.
“It’s the biggest, boldest and most innovative casino in the world, and we believe it will deliver the economic benefit of the world’s largest gambling operation,” Smith said.
The Sands Gold, Silver and Diamonds casino is expected to cost about $100 million to build, according to the Sands company.
That’s about double what the company spent on building the Rio Grande, but Smith said that’s due to the need to build it in a state that is so small.
“We need to get a better deal than the Rio,” Smith told reporters.
Smith said the Sands would be a much better deal for Nevada, because of its lower taxes, fewer taxes and a lower rate of unemployment than other casinos.
Sands is also seeking an extension to the resort’s license to operate in Nevada.
Nevada is the only state where casinos are required to be privately operated, but the state has not made any public commitments about opening its casinos to non-gaming patrons.
“There is a big gap between Las Vegas, where it’s the most popular place to play, and the rest of the state,” said Dan Ghezzi, the vice president of Las Vegas-based Casino Control International, a firm that lobbies against casino expansion.
“If you’re a Las Vegas person, you don’t want to live there anymore.
The casino industry is dying, and I don’t know what the next generation is going to be like.”
Nevada’s casinos have been the victims of multiple bankruptcy lawsuits over the years.
In 2010, the state was hit with more than $7 billion in federal and state government funding after it filed for bankruptcy protection.
The state has since passed laws to encourage the establishment of new casinos, and more than 30 new ones have opened since 2011.
Las Vegas is the largest casino in Las Angeles County, and most of the casinos in Las Angles are owned by the MGM Resort International chain.
The most recent bankruptcy filings showed that the company had $2.5 billion in assets, with debts of more than about $7.5 million.
