To answer your questions roughly in order, casino licenses are location-specific. They are not portable. However, they also cannot be deeded. The sale of a casino re-starts the licensing process. The latter procedure is so notoriously thorough and onerous that it is more expedient to hold one-day casinos on the site rather than let the license lapse and try to re-license as though you were an absolute beginner. No matter who you are, you have to get licensed for each new casino you build.
However, "Trailer Stations" as they’ve become known are only held in conjunction with sites that were grandfathered in with the passage of Nevada Revised Statute 465.1605, which would require – in return for unrestricted gaming -- the new construction to include restaurants, bars and at least 200 hotel rooms. So the owners of the Moulin Rouge have a much lower threshold to meet, for instance, if they keep renewing the license on their site.
Complicating the issue is that of zoning. You can only have gambling on a site zoned for that use but "you need all of the approvals to move forward," says Clark County Public Information Officer Dan Kulin. You can buy a gaming-zoned site but, if the state entitlement has lapsed, you’re still back to Square One. (It’s kind of like "Chutes and Ladders.") "The gaming issue is just a land-use issue," says Kulin, one you have to square with the county, one that doesn’t involve background checks and the kind of exhaustive due diligence associated with licensing. That’s because getting a gaming license has relatively little to do with the land, and everything to do with your background, character and corporate history.
