Actually, we're pretty certain that Railroad Pass does hold the #4 license, but some confusion crept into play as we researched the answer, in part because of the discrepancies we cited in the previous QoD (2/27/2012), in terms of what casino owned which number license, and because the number four also refers to the total number of Railroad Pass licenses on file with the Nevada Gaming Control Board.
With changes of ownership and status, a new license was issued. The first was approved on July 24, 1974 and awarded to Bob Verchota’s Rail Road Pass Casino. (A Railroad Pass Club casino had opened on the site in 1931, a few months after gambling was re-legalized in Nevada.) Founding owner Robert J. Verchota was granted permission for "Twenty-one games be dealt from a shoe and a discard tray utilized."
The second license, awarded on Nov. 20, 1980, reaffirmed Verchota as sole owner but renamed the property Bob Verchota’s Railroad Pass Casino & Supper-Club Sports Pool ("Parlay cards only"). In other words, Verchota had been given permission to open a sports book in addition to his blackjack tables.
License Number Three covered a change in ownership to Railroad Pass Investment Group LLC, on Sept. 19, 1985. In this guise, it would be subsumed into Circus Circus Enterprises, which became Mandalay Resort Group, which was in turn absorbed by MGM Mirage – now MGM Resorts International – on May 26, 2005. Control of Railroad Pass Investment Group passed nominally to MGM CEO James J. Murren, who holds its current business and Gaming Control licenses. In addition to MGM, co-owners are listed as M.S.E. Investments (another MGM subsidiary) and – as of Nov. 20, 2008 -- Infinity World, a Cayman Islands-based alter ego of Dubai World, the state-run investment arm of the emirate of Dubai. Alas, nobody thought to exploit the Arabian connection and rename the casino "Desert Passage."
