Best Boyd Gaming Hotels in Las Vegas: find 16,066 traveler reviews, candid photos, and prices for 7 Boyd Gaming Hotels in Las Vegas, NV. Suspicions, accusations and controversy about the Stardust's hidden ownership over the years was finally squelched when Sam Boyd's locally based, squeaky-clean gaming company, Boyd Gaming, purchased the Stardust in March 1985. The Stardust was a virtual gold mine to the Chicago Outfit, the skim being extremely large. When The Stardust was taken.
According to the best data I could find on the subject, you can gamble at any of 136 total casinos in Las Vegas.
But they’re not all separate business entities.
In fact, most of them are not individual businesses. Most of the casinos on the Strip are owned by one of four different companies.
Who owns the Las Vegas casinos?
This post offers some answers.
Not every business in Las Vegas counts as a casino, and some of the casinos included in that tally of 136 casinos are located just outside the Las Vegas city limits.
When most people think of Las Vegas these days, they think of the Strip, which is in Paradise and Winchester — both unincorporated towns just outside the city limits.
Also, for purposes of this tally, I’m not including small local businesses with a gambling machine or two — you can find plenty of bars and gas stations that fit that criteria. None of them are what I would call a casino, although definitions vary.
Any business with more than 15 slot machines or that offers tables games (like blackjack, craps, or roulette) can safely be included under the category of “casino,” though.
Most of the casinos in Las Vegas are either on (or just off) the Strip or on Boulder Highway. Between just those two locations, you’ll find over 90 of those 136 casinos.
Downtown Las Vegas also has a couple of dozen casinos, and the rest are in North Las Vegas.
Together, Las Vegas casinos generate $10 billion a year in revenue. About two-thirds of that is generated from casinos on the Strip.
MGM Resorts Owns a Lot of Casinos in Las Vegas
Mandalay Bay and MGM Resorts merged nearly 15 years ago to become one of the biggest casino-owning companies in the city. Some (but not all) of the casinos in Las Vegas they own include the following.
- Aria
- Bellagio
- Circus Circus
- CityCenter
- Delano
- Excalibur
- Luxor
- Mandalay Bay
- MGM Grand
- The Mirage
- New York New York
- Park MGM (Used to be the Monte Carlo)
- Vdara
That’s a huge number of casinos on the Las Vegas Strip for one company to own — almost 25% of the properties on the Strip, in fact.
And since these are some of the largest casinos on the Strip, MGM Resorts controls a larger number of the gambling action than you might expect. They probably account for 40% or 45% of the gambling revenue on the Strip.
In the last couple of years, MGM Resorts has started moving into the online gaming space, too. They recently signed a partnership agreement with Yahoo Sports to provide sports betting functionality.
Caesars Entertainment Is the Other Big Player in Las Vegas Casinos
Caesars Entertainment got big as the result of a merger between Caesars and Harrah’s. They own the following casinos.
- Bally’s
- Caesars Palace
- The Cromwell
- Flamingo
- Harrah’s
- Linq
- O’Sheas
- Paris
- Planet Hollywood
- Rio Suites
- Harrah’s in Laughlin
Caesars is the fourth-largest gaming company in the world, and they generate $8.6 billion a year in revenue. Not all of that is generated by their Las Vegas properties, but a huge chunk of it is.
Caesars also owns close to 96 acres of undeveloped land near the Las Vegas Strip. I’m betting that they’ll add more casinos there at some point, but this post is about who owns which casinos in Las Vegas now, not in the future, so I’ll save the speculation for later.
Boyd Gaming Is Probably the Biggest Casino Company You’ve Never Heard Of
Boyd Gaming runs multiple casino properties from its headquarters in Paradise, Nevada. The company makes the bulk of its money from casino gambling, which generates 75% of their revenue.
Boyd Gaming owns the following Las Vegas casinos.
- Aliante
- California Casino
- Cannery Casino
- Eastside Cannery Casino
- Eldorado Casino
- Fremont Hotel and Casino
- Gold Coast
- Jokers Wild
- Main Street Station
- The Orleans
- Sam’s Town
- Suncoast Hotel and Casino
Three of these casinos — California Hotel and Casino, Fremont Hotel and Casino, and Main Street Station — are in Downtown Vegas.
Many of Boyd Gaming’s casinos cater to customers who are interested in spending less money. A lot of their casinos have hotel rooms available at $40 per night, sometimes less. Fremont and Main Street regularly have room rates as low as $30 a night on weeknights.
Boyd Gaming’s casinos cater to a largely locals market, and their odds and payouts are higher than the big corporate casinos on the Strip.
Station Casinos Is the Other Big Casino Owner in Town
The headquarters for Station Casinos is in Summerlin. Station, like Boyd, specializes in offering casino games with great odds to local gamblers. In fact, you can find the best video poker games in town at several of the properties owned by Station Casinos.
They own the following properties.
- Boulder Station
- Green Valley Ranch
- Palace Station
- Palms Casino Resort
- Red Rock Resort
- Santa Fe Station
- Texas Station
- Fiesta Henderson
- Fiesta Rancho
- Wild Wild West
Perhaps the most notable thing about Station Casinos is the availability of high-paying video poker games that aren’t available at other casinos.
Video poker is one of those games that has a high payback percentage, but it’s only high if you choose the right games with the right pay tables. Station Casinos offer more of these games than almost any other company in Las Vegas.
How do you define a high-payout video poker game?
Generally, I look for games with a payback percentage of 98% or higher.
It won’t take much research on the internet to find out which pay tables and which games you should look for at Station Casinos.
If you combine this low house edge with the rewards you get from joining the slots club, you might even show a small long-term profit playing video poker at Station Casinos.
But you’ll probably not make much of a living from that endeavor.
Golden Entertainment owns the following casinos, but they also operate taverns with slot machines in them. And they provide slots to other businesses.
- Aquarius Casino Resort
- Arizona Charlie’s Boulder
- Arizona Charlie’s Decatur
- Colorado Belle
- Edgewater Hotel and Casino
- Stratosphere Las Vegas
They also own three casinos in Pahrump, Nevada, which is about 60 miles from Vegas.
I have experience at the Stratosphere, by the way, and I recommend checking it out next time you visit Vegas. The rotating restaurant, Top of the World, offers the most breathtaking views of Las Vegas that you could imagine.
You Can Also Find Individual Casinos Owned by (VERY RICH) Individuals
Casino Royale, for example, is owned by Margaret Elardi. She’s in her mid-90s, and her son Tom helps to run the casino. By all accounts, the Elardis are private people. They used to own the Frontier in the 1990s.
El Cortez is owned by Kenny Epstein. It’s one of the smaller casinos in town, but it’s also one of the oldest, having opened in 1941. It’s on the National Register of Historic Places.
El Cortez is the oldest continually-operating casino in Las Vegas by a far sight — no one else comes close.
Slots-A-Fun is owned by Phil Ruffin. You’ll find it right next to Circus Circus, but you’ll need to be alert — it’s one of the smallest casinos in town. Slots-A-Fun used to be famous for offering dollar blackjack and $2 craps, but they no longer offer table games at all. You can still shoot pool and play shuffleboard there, though.
They also have a bowling alley.
Who owns the casinos in Las Vegas?
Most of them are owned by four or five companies, although several are owned by individuals.
If you’re gambling on the Strip, you’re probably doing business with a huge corporation.
But even if you’re gambling at one of the smallest casinos in Las Vegas, you can bet that the owner is rich beyond belief.
LAS VEGAS – Mass layoffs are continuing on The Strip as COVID-19 travel fallout keeps tourists and their money away from this gambling and entertainment destination.
Boyd Casinos In Las Vegas
More than 1,110 workers at Tropicana and two live entertainment venues at Park MGM and MGM Grand are losing their jobs, according to notices sent to Nevada employment officials.
While Park Theater and MGM Grand Garden Arena are tied to MGM Resorts properties, the layoffs impact employees of Aramark – a third-party vendor that operates at those locations.
Here are the cuts at each location:
- Tropicana: 828
- Park Theater: 180
- MGM Grand Garden Arena: 164
'Significant drags on our business will likely continue for the foreseeable future,' wrote Tropicana assistant general manager Mike Thoma. 'We could not have anticipated when our properties would be allowed to reopen and how restrictive the new operating conditions would be, and the negative impact this would have on business volumes.”
Boyd Casinos In Vegas
An additional 132 Tropicana workers will lose their jobs in December, according to a second letter sent to Nevada officials.
Devastating business closures and travel fallout in the wake of COVID-19 have led to layoffs for hundreds of thousands of workers in this gambling and entertainment mecca.
More: David Copperfield, Carrot Top, Jabbawockeez returning to the Las Vegas Strip
The Nevada closures in mid-March followed an order by Gov. Steve Sisolak aimed at reducing the spread of COVID-19.
MGM layoffs in August impacted 18,000 employees – one-fourth of the 68,000 workers the casino company employed before the pandemic. The terminated employees had all been on furlough since March, when all U.S. hotel and gaming properties closed.
U.S. casino company Boyd Gaming in July announced the termination of thousands of workers in 10 states as visitation levels remain far below pre-pandemic levels. The layoffs impacted at least 25% of Boyd's 24,300 employees – a total of 6,075 cuts.
More: A first look at the giant pool coming to Downtown Las Vegas' Circa Resort & Casino
Boyd is best known for the Fremont Hotel, California Hotel and Casino, Gold Coast, Sam’s Town, Suncoast and The Orleans resorts in Las Vegas.
Air travel at McCarran International Airport remained down 61 percent in September.
Ed Komenda writes about Las Vegas for the Reno Gazette Journal and USA Today Network. Do you care about democracy? Then support local journalism by subscribing to the Reno Gazette Journal right here.
This article originally appeared on Reno Gazette Journal: Las Vegas Strip layoffs continue: 1,200 workers cut at Tropicana, MGM Grand Garden Arena, Park Theater