Casino Quest’s co-founders claim business pushed out of Strip mall

A popular Las Vegas Strip experience that teaches people how to play casino games has allegedly been forced out of its retail space inside a mall.

As of Oct. 15, Casino Quest is no longer in the Fashion Show Mall. An off-strip Casino Quest location at the Casino Training Center on Sahara Avenue is open.

Casino Quest’s co-founders posted a one-hour-and-nineteen-minute video on YouTube last week in which they claim the mall’s management company, Brookfield Properties, pushed the business out of Fashion Show. In a since-amended post on its business website, Casino Quest said Brookfield reneged on a deal for a new concept that had been negotiated over several years.

Brookfield Properties did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

According to Casino Quest’s owners, the two sides had been discussing an open-space casino games school concept to supplant the retail store for years and had reached an agreement in principle. Within the last few months, the property management’s position on the concept changed and Casino Quest was evicted from Fashion Show ahead of the agreed-upon time frame, the business’s ownership claims.

On Wednesday, David Noll, chief executive and co-founder of Casino Quest, said he has been in contact with Brookfield representatives twice in the last eight days. While Noll said he and his partner, Alex Kim, president and co-founder of Casino Quest, are open to an amicable resolution that could still potentially see the unrealized common area Casino Quest experience come to fruition at Fashion Show, he felt compelled to tell their side of the story.

“We did a YouTube video explaining because we have a big social media platform that literally drives our business. That’s the thing that’s escalated the school. That’s the thing that’s built our business. (So) we had to.”

In less than six days, the YouTube video has over 17,000 views on the CEG Dealer School page.

Noll and Kim also operate the CEG Dealer School at the Casino Training Center on Sahara. The 10,000-square-foot space is considerably larger than the 4,800-square-foot retail footprint Casino Quest had inside Fashion Show.

“It’s actually worked out a little better for us, strangely,” Noll said. “We haven’t lost anything. In fact, almost all of our customers have transferred.”

Casino Quest launched in 2019 as a pop-up event at Fashion Show. The premise was straightforward — allow people to learn the rules and basic strategies of casino table games without risking real money.

The brand’s exposure grew during the COVID-19 pandemic as a result of its online tutorials teaching the ins-and-outs of casino table games. The Casino Quest and CEG Dealer School YouTube pages have a combined subscriber count of more than 406,000.

David Danzis can be contacted at ddanzis@reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0378. Follow AC2Vegas_Danzis on X.