One in all Las Vegas’s first mega resorts and a former in style poker spot is about to shut. Though unique plans referred to as for renovation whereas the property remained open, the choice has been made that The Mirage might be shuttered on July 17 as the brand new house owners, the Seminole tribe of Florida, transition the on line casino into Exhausting Rock Las Vegas.
“We actually are inspired about not solely the way forward for Las Vegas, however how Exhausting Rock and Seminole Tribe can play a job in serving to to develop that and develop the market,” on line casino President Dan Lupo advised the Las Vegas Evaluate-Journal. “However at the moment is a tricky day for lots of people. Our precedence is the wellbeing of these people.”
Historic Mega Resort
The property is predicted to reopen in July 2027. Within the meantime, about 3,300 staff are being laid off. The corporate is offering a useful resource middle to assist staff discover jobs together with the supply of transferring to different Seminole properties across the nation.
Union representatives have mentioned they’re additionally working with staff to search out new alternatives. The corporate is paying out about $80 million in severance funds to these let go.
The Seminoles acquired the Mirage in December 2022 for about $1 billion. Plans name for the brand new resort to incorporate a guitar-shaped resort tower, as seen on the Seminole Exhausting Rock in Hollywood, Florida, in addition to 25 eating places and a 5,000-seat theater.
The Mirage ushered within the mega resort pattern on the Las Vegas Strip after opening in 1989. The brainchild of on line casino impresario Steve Wynn, the on line casino was the costliest resort ever constructed on the time at a price ticket of $630 million.
Company had been handled to points of interest that had been sudden for a on line casino on the time together with dolphin and tiger habitats, an indoor tropical forest, a 20,000-gallon aquarium of unique fish, and a synthetic volcano that erupted nightly alongside the Strip for guests passing by. The property was additionally residence to the famed Siegfried & Roy magic present for 14 years and was additionally residence to Cirque du Soleil’s first Las Vegas present.
Standard Poker Venue
The property additionally hosted many huge names within the poker site and was even talked about within the film Rounders as “the middle of the poker universe.” Poker gamers like Doyle Brunson, Daniel Negreanu, and others had been regulars on the property within the ‘90s earlier than town’s larger motion shifted to properties just like the Bellagio and Aria.
Negreanu took to Twitter to precise his recollections of the on line casino.
This one hits onerous
I’ve so many nostalgic recollections within the late 90’s strolling into this place, listening to Steve Wynn’s voice, seeing the Tigers, and the odor is imprinted in my mind
This was poker Mecca earlier than Bellagio opened
RIP Mirage
You may be missed https://t.co/kiNIOBz7uR
— Daniel Negreanu (@RealKidPoker) Could 15, 2024
The poker site closed in 2020 through the pandemic and by no means reopened. The Seminoles haven’t introduced whether or not a poker site can be a part of the redeveloped property, however the sport is a significant a part of the corporate’s different operations in Florida, so there’s no less than a chance that Vegas may even see one other poker venue sooner or later.
This isn’t the one property on the Strip to shut. The Tropicana was shuttered in April to make means for the brand new baseball stadium for the Oakland Athletics. There have been stories that On line casino Royale might be imploded this 12 months to make means for a bigger venue.
The oldest on line casino on the Las Vegas Strip stays the Flamingo, which opened in December of 1946, adopted by the Sahara, which opened in October of 1952.
