Coast Casinos was launched in 1979, when Michael Gaughan, son of Las Vegas gaming pioneer Jackie Gaughan, grafted the Barbary Coast onto the famous corner of Flamingo and the Strip, between the Flamingo itself and the MGM Grand (now Bally's).
In 1986, Michael Gaughan expanded for the first time, opening the Gold Coast just west of the Barbary Coast on Flamingo Rd. across Interstate 15.
Ten years later, Gaughan's company, now known as Coast Casinos, opened the Orleans, a $200 million 760-room locals casino on West Tropicana Avenue roughly two miles west of the Strip.
In September 2000, Coast Casinos opened the Suncoast, another locals casino way up in the northwest part of town, on Rampart near W. Charleston.
Then, in April 2002, Coast announced plans for a new hotel-casino in far southern Las Vegas, at the corner of I-15 and Silverado Ranch Road, to be called South Coast and scheduled to open in 2005.
However, while South Coast was still under construction, in early 2004, Boyd Gaming acquired Coast Casinos in a deal reportedly worth $1.3 billion. Combining Coast's Barbary Coast, Gold Coast, Suncoast, and Orleans with Boyd's Stardust, Fremont, California, Main Street Station, Sam's Town, Jokers Wild, and Eldorado in Henderson created the largest locals-casino company in Nevada. The Coast brand was retained by Boyd and was headed by Michael Gaughan. The deal closed in August 2004; the new Boyd boasted 18 casinos total, with a 19th (South Coast) under construction. It was at the time the fifth largest casino company in the world.
Less than a year later, Boyd announced that it was more than doubling the original number of South Coast's hotel rooms, for a total of 1,350. The property opened in Decmeber 2005, at a price tag of $600 million.
This is where it gets tricky, so pay attention. Less than a year later, in August 2006, Boyd Gaming sold the South Coast back to its former owner, the founder of Coast Casinos, Michael Gaughan. Boyd, actually, traded South Coast for Gaughan’s 15.8 million shares of Boyd stock, which was worth $576 million at the time. Gaughan, it turned out, was vocally dissatisfied with corporate life and had expressed the desire to run his own show again. For Boyd's part, it apparently wanted to divest itself of South Coast, which had underperformed since opening. Gaughan renamed the resort South Point, which necessitated changing only three letters of the sign.
So, to answer your question directly, there hasn't been a separate Coast Casinos company, only an incorporated brand, for more than two years. Boyd still owns all the Coast casinos, along with the Orleans, while Michael Gaughan owns the South Point. No new Coast projects are on the drawing board, given that Boyd has suspended construction on its Echelon Place metaresort for the foreseeable future due to the economic climate.
