Question of the Day — 9 May 2014

Your QOD regarding past casinos raised a few memories and a couple of questions in my mind. First, I recall a terrific breakfast at the Silver Slipper which I believe would have sat on the lot between the New Frontier and the Stardust, and one of your pictures included Silver City. How many other strip casinos disappeared that were not on the sites of current casinos? Thanks for another thought-provoking QOD.

You're welcome, and apologies to all those who tuned in expecting this answer yesterday, only to be greeted with a blank space. The Thursday and Friday QoDs accidentally got transposed but we fixed it as soon as we realized.

Back to the query in hand and this time around, we'll start at the north end of the Strip and work our way southward, hoping that we don't miss anything along the way...

Holy Cow!: Technically just north of the northern limit of the official Las Vegas Strip, lying as it did at the northeast corner of Las Vegas Blvd. and Sahara Ave., this diminutive former casino and brewing company was briefly re-purposed as a sales office for Ivana Trump's soon-abandoned condo-tower concept, and has remained vacant ever since, with plans for a new hi-tech mall failing to materialize.
El Rancho Vegas: The lot once occupied by the Strip's first casino is now partially occupied by Hilton Grand Vacation Club, while the rest of the parcel remains empty.
Westward Ho/The Ho: McDonald's
Riata/Silver City: Silver City Mall
Thunderbird/Silverbird/El Rancho: Part of this lot is still vacant; the rest is occupied either by Turnberry Place or the unfinished Fountainebleu.
Silver Slipper: Was purchased in 1988 by then Frontier-owner Margaret Elardi, and was subsequently turned into a parking lot.

South of this area, we can't think of any plot of land that previously housed a casino but no longer does. If anyone else can, please drop us a line! In the meantime, here's the link to a really cool slideshow of aerial shots of the evolving Las Vegas Strip, which we found in the Las Vegas Sun historic galleries.

Previous QoD

It seems like there's always a discussion somewhere that goes something like "Why can't a hotel with 2,000 rooms guarantee a simple request?" So, recently I Googled around a bit and learned that on average Las Vegas hotels ran at about 87.1% capacity in 2013. To me that means a 2,000 room hotel would have something like 258 rooms "available" on any given day. That sounds like a decent number, but how many are typically reserved by casino marketing, are unavailable due to damage, are undesirable for some reason, etc.? The more I thought about it the more it seemed that even with 2,000 rooms 87% occupancy has got to be pretty close to the practical maximum. Am I right or way off?

Tomorrow's QoD

What can you tell us about lounge singer by the name of Richard Cheese?

Question of the Day — 9 May 2014

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