Question of the Day - 02 July 2018

Not quite.

The Flamingo dates back to 1946, when Bugsy Siegel took it over from Billy Wilkerson and finished it. However, all vestiges of the Wilkerson/Siegel Flamingo have been erased and it is, for all intents and purposes, a modern casino — albeit one that may be starting to show its age (although not so badly as Harrah’s Las Vegas, which dates from 1973).

Most of the Sahara, vintage 1952, still stands. However, developer Sam Nazarian eradicated so much of its period charm and so drastically made over its hotel rooms in the process of converting it into SLS Las Vegas that it would have a hard time making the historic-preservation list.

Fast-forward to 1957 and you have the Tropicana. It has grown exponentially in the intervening 61 years and received a (spiffy) South Beach makeover under the leadership of Alex Yemenidjian, circa 2010. Current owner Penn National Gaming has punted on any additional physical alterations for the time being, so you can still enjoy the period flavor, stroll the lush pool area, maybe even play a few hands of the famous swim-up blackjack.

The mid-'60s brought the double-whammy of Caesars Palace (1966) and Circus Circus (1968). The latter remains much as Jay Sarno envisioned it, with the family appeal having been subsequently supersized with the addition of theme park Adventuredome. It’s not what people think of when they say "classic Vegas," but it’s definitely a throwback. That’s not quite so much the case with Caesars Palace, which retains a few vestiges of Sarno’s era, but has been expanded by subsequent owners so much that it seems a completely new casino — one of the most impressive and maze-like on the Strip.

Kirk Kerkorian’s original MGM Grand, now Bally’s, dates from 1973, but it’s a pretty generic property, not redolent of any particular era. Casino critic David Kranes called it an “airplane-hangar casino” and we agree.

1975’s Marina Casino would be subsumed into what is now MGM Grand and survives in the form of the microscopic West Wing rooms, so small you have to step outside to change your mind.

Perhaps the last "old" Vegas casino to be built was 1979’s Slots-A-Fun, which current owner MGM Resorts maintains in its charmingly quaint aura.

Ten relatively uneventful years passed before Steve Wynn opened the Mirage in 1989. It revolutionized the casino industry in several respects. Not only did entertainment become a big-ticket item, so did restaurants, long a loss-leader for the casino industry. Also, the Mirage was one of the first casinos built to withstand changes of time and fashion. As stock analyst Marvin Roffman said of Wynn, “He builds fortresses.”

The contrast could not be more starkly drawn when, in a crude of imitation of Wynn’s lightly themed Mirage and Treasure Island (1993), Circus Circus Enterprises built the candy-colored Excalibur in 1990, already dated only a couple decades later. Circus Circus, to be fair, got the theming thing right with 1999’s Mandalay Bay. However, the moment the Mirage opened, it slammed the door on the era with which we associate the Rat Pack and vintage Vegas.

Perhaps in time there will be a Classic Vegas 2.0, one in which the Mirage is looked on with fond nostalgia and becomes the home for bargain-seeking tourists. However, it seems unlikely. Bellagio is almost 20 years old and still predominant, upstaging its intended successor, Aria. Wall Street seems reluctant to invest in new casinos — and after the twin debacles of SLS Las Vegas and the Lucky Dragon, who can blame them? Either you head over to the Trop to soak up some old-time Vegas vibes or you browse among the current crop of casinos and decide that this is about as good as it’s going to get — and in our opinion, when the Bellagio fountain show is playing, that’s pretty good indeed.