The house does not always win.
Starting April 2, the Tropicana Las Vegas will shut its doors to make way for a new baseball stadium and resort, nearly 67 years after the casino first opened its doors.
The 44,000-square-foot casino and 1,400-room hotel will be demolished and replaced with a 30,000-seat ballpark, the future home of the Athletics, announced Bally’s, the Rhode Island-based owner of the Tropicana since 2022.
The Athletics agreed to relocate to Las Vegas from Oakland in November. The team’s move follows the 2020 relocation of the NFL’s Raiders from Oakland to Las Vegas and the NBA’s Golden State Warriors from Oakland to San Francisco in 2019.
The new ballpark is projected to bring more than 2.5 million fans and visitors annually to the Las Vegas Strip, Bally’s said in a news release.
The Tropicana will close out all hotel bookings and relocate customers with reservations booked beyond the closure date. More information about bookings, reward club cards and gaming transactions can be found online at troplv.com.
The Tropicana Las Vegas opened on April 4, 1957, and was originally billed as the “Tiffany of the Strip” in promotional advertising. The then 300-room hotel also boasted itself as the most expensive property in Las Vegas, with a $15-million price tag, the Nevada State Journal reported at the time.
The casino played host to Elvis Presley in the 1964 movie “Viva Las Vegas”; the 1971 James Bond film “Diamonds Are Forever”; and the 1972 film “The Godfather,” in which it was renamed the Tropigala.
After its humble beginnings, ties to organized crime and numerous changes in ownership, the Tropicana completed a $157-million renovation to embrace a South Beach motif in 2011, replete with white marble floors throughout the casino.
But all of that will soon be history. The hotel-casino currently takes up 35 acres on the south end of the Las Vegas Strip and, once demolished, will clear a path for the proposed $1.5-billion ballpark that will take up nine acres of land. A proposed resort will be integrated into the master plan, according to Bally’s. Company President George Papanier in a statement said Bally’s is “honored to be a key partner with the Athletics on bringing a Major League ballpark to the great city of Las Vegas.” The land is currently leased to the Tropicana by Gaming & Leisure Properties.
In November, Major League Baseball owners approved the move by the A’s to Las Vegas, and Nevada offered the team $380 million in public funding to help pay for the project. The stadium is expected to open by 2028, but the Athletics’ current lease with the Oakland Coliseum terminates at the end of the 2024 season, potentially leaving the team, temporarily, without a home.
This story originally appeared on LA Times
