Apparently not. You’ve stumped some of the best minds in the casino industry. According to South Point owner Michael Gaughan (son of Jackie), the Western was built in 1970 by Jackie Gaughan and his regular business partner, Mel Exber, as a subsidiary of their El Cortez Hotel & Casino.
According to current El Cortez CEO Kenny Epstein, the idea came from Art Rosen, who El Cortez General Manager Mike Nolan describes as "one of Jackie’s old friends. I guess he had bingo experience," although Rosen didn’t manage the property. The Western opened with 1,000 seats and plenty of competition. "It was a little tough, so they had to lower the [bingo-package] rates a little bit," Nolan explains.
Michael Gaughan is less diplomatic. "It failed miserably," he says, leading to a gradual casino conversion between 1972 and ’'74. As far as anybody who might remember the old days at the Western, "There's nobody left." In Nolan's case, "I've worked in all Jackie's places except that one." His lone Western memory is of visiting it in 1971, when he was a sophomore in high school and his mother was employed by the hall.
Exber and the older Gaughan eventually sold the Western, along with a grab bag of casinos, motels, and other random parcels of real estate in 2004. Lichtenstein-based conglomerate and real-estate speculator Tamares Group bought the Western, and seems to have been in a quandary over what to do with it ever since. Revolving-door casino management (four operators in six-plus years) has not helped.
A related property, Club Bingo, opened in 1971 at 23 Fremont Street. Gaughan and Exber sold it in 1983 to Pioneer Gaming Co., a pair of California investors. In the 1990s, it was briefly owned by Circus Circus executive Mike Ensign but its days as a bingo hall have long passed. For more on Club Bingo, see QoD 9/18/2005.
