| | |  | Last Updated: Tuesday, June 19, 2007 |  | | | The World's Top Gambling Venue Changes Again
- Saturday, 21 Jan 2006
Gambling would not be the same with out Las Vegas. The strip is considered one of the greatest gambling land marks on the planet. Ask any gambling fan anywhere in the world what the first thing they think about when they think of a land-based casino, and 9/10 you will hear the words, Las Vegas. Looking back, 2005 will be remembered as a transitional year for Las Vegas. It saw a legend return and the groundwork laid for a transformation on the Las Vegas Strip. But how does it compare to another watershed year, 50 years ago?
Las Vegas marked its semi-centennial in 1955 with a series of casino openings, the Royal Nevada, Riviera, New Frontier, Dunes and Moulin Rouge. The Moulin Rouge challenged the racial segregation that was rampant in Las Vegas then, and though it struggled as a gambling venue, it pointed the way to the future: in 1960, the major casinos of the Strip and downtown agreed to end their Jim Crow policies. That summer, flush with its new casinos, the Strip had a national coming-out, including a Life magazine cover story that painted the gambling city in a favorable light.
Other new casinos had a less positive impact. The Royal Nevada, Riviera and Dunes all struggled from the start, as fears that the Strip had been overbuilt, at a time when room inventory was less than a tenth of today's, began to mount. The Riviera and Dunes, with new infusions of working capital and management changes, eventually righted themselves, but the Royal Nevada was doomed as a gambling site. Nothing seemed to go right for the resort, and, after a dealer was caught cheating, it closed forever. Paradoxically, while the Dunes has been completely erased from the Strip, the Royal Nevada survives, in 1958 it was incorporated into the Stardust, and, though greatly renovated, is still the southern half of that property.
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