Las Vegas Strip casino implosion drawing huge room rates

As Las Vegas anxiously waits for the Tropicana hotel-casino to come down, room rates for properties around the demolition site are going up.

The remainder of the Tropicana is tentatively scheduled to be imploded at 2:30 a.m. on Oct. 9, pending permit approval from Clark County. Before the controlled demolition, a fireworks and drone show will take place on Oct. 8, according to Bally’s Corp., operator of the fated Rat Pack-era casino.

Lovers of Las Vegas and casino history pounced on the opportunity to witness the first Sin City implosion in eight years.

In response to last week’s implosion announcement, operators of properties near the Trop or with direct sight lines of the spectacle almost immediately raised prices for rooms on the night of Oct. 8.

Rooms at the Oyo hotel-casino — the closest property to the Trop — with a Strip view are going for anywhere between $549 and $567 for the night.

MGM Resorts International operates three casinos — MGM Grand, New York-New York and Excalibur — at the four-way intersection where the Trop stands. Rooms at New York-New York and Excalibur are already sold out, according to MGM’s online reservation system. The cheapest room at the MGM Grand is listed at $1,550.

Rooms at the Bellagio and Vdara hotels start at $699 for the night, and both properties are nearly one mile from the blast site.

The Trop’s scheduled implosion is taking place during Global Gaming Expo, or G2E, which is the largest annual gambling industry conference. Rooms rates are often inflated for G2E, especially at properties with a mid-Strip location near the Venetian Expo Center, where the convention takes place.

The last Las Vegas casino to be imploded was the Riviera, which came down on Aug. 16, 2016. Before that, the New Frontier, which came down in November 2007, was the last imploded gambling parlor in Las Vegas. That same year, the Stardust (March) was imploded on the Las Vegas Strip.

The most recent big-name casino implosion took place across the country in Atlantic City. In February 2021, the former Trump Plaza casino-hotel on the AC Boardwalk came down nearly seven years after it shuttered its doors for good.

The Trop in Las Vegas is being imploded to make way for a proposed baseball stadium. Major League Baseball’s Oakland Athletics and Bally’s have proposed the construction of a $1.5 billion stadium on the site with a new resort to be built at a later date, according to officials. So far, funding sources for the projects have not been determined or approved.

David Danzis can be contacted at ddanzis@reviewjournal.com. Follow AC_Danzis on X.