Question of the Day - 30 April 2024

This is a question we receive more than one might expect. We answered it only a few years ago, though Binion's is so iconic that we suppose interest is eternal.

The Hotel Apache itself, independent of Binion's, opened in 1932. It was built by P.O. Silvagni, an Italian immigrant who, though he spoke little English, was a builder in Utah, held one of the concrete contracts for Hoover Dam, and bought the vacant lot at 128 Fremont Street for $60,000, though there's some uncertainty over whether or not he made a second payment of $30,000. Silvagni envisioned that the dam workers needed a place to blow off steam on Saturday nights. It was the first Las Vegas hotel to have air-conditioning in the lobby, protected by a newfangled "air curtain" at the entrance. It was also the first with an electric elevator and a carpeted casino.

The building was eventually leased by Benny Binion, who ran the original 81 rooms above the Eldorado Casino, renamed the Horseshoe, for friends and players.

Binion’s was purchased by TLC Casino Enterprises, which also owns the Four Queens, in 2004 and the rooms were closed in 2008 due to the economic downturn.

Eighty of the original 81 rooms reopened on July 29, 2019.

Code restrictions prevented moving walls to increase the size of the rooms, so they were refurbished and decorated to look like they did in the ’30s: hardwood floors, stained-glass windows, historic photos, antique furnishings, including old phones and radios, and queen beds only, though with the mod cons, such as flat-screen TVs and upgraded bathrooms.   

Since reopening the Apache, Binion's has been touting it as downtown's "Historic Haunted Hotel," where unexplained and unexplainable phenomena — spirits apparently doing odd stuff like slamming doors, shuffling papers, turning on TVs, showing up in photos, making muffled thumps, even having contact with staff members, especially in the old count room on the second floor and room 400 — take place on a reportedly regular basis; the hotel rooms were featured on the Travel Channel show “Ghost Adventures” in March 2019.

You can see photos of the rooms and suites here. They start as low as $45 and go as high as $319. 

And if you want to stay at Binion's/Apache, we have a coupon for 15% off the prevailing room rate in our Member Rewards Book.