The final day for a Las Vegas legend has arrived: the historic Tropicana casino closes.
The Tropicana hotel-casino closes its doors this Tuesday, April 2nd, just two days before its 67th anniversary, to make way for a Major League Baseball stadium and a new Bally resort. Over the next year, the land the Tropicana now occupies will be cleared, with the intention that the organization currently known as the Oakland A's will claim the vacant lot in April 2025 and begin construction.
The Tropicana leaves behind Caesars Palace, Circus Circus, the Flamingo, and the dwindling number of pre-1970 Las Vegas Strip resorts that haven't been imploded, renamed, or remodeled to the point of being unrecognizable. And while there are many solid financial arguments to be made for leveling the Tropicana, it's heartbreaking to see another Vegas original disappear, with little for locals to do but consider its legacy, notes the Las Vegas Weekly.
“New things are always good for Las Vegas. And the baseball [stadium] is going to be great,” says Harry Basil, partner and general manager of Laugh Factory, a Trop game for over a dozen years.
He adds, wistfully: "I just wish it were somewhere else."
The Tropicana was the brainchild of Ben Jaffe, a Miami hotelier who owned the land beneath the hotel, and Phil Kastel, an organized crime figure whose company built and operated the resort. At its opening, the 325-room Tropicana was the most expensive property in Vegas, costing $15 million – more than $470 million in 2024. A 60-foot-tall tulip-shaped fountain stood at the property's entrance; inside, its lavish Caribbean-inspired décor earned it the nickname "the Tiffany of the Strip," a title befitting a jewel.
Glory clings to the Tropicana almost immediately. Big names like Errol Garner, Benny Goodman, and Gene Krupa performed there in its early years. Several iconic films and television shows, including Francis Ford Coppola's musical Viva Las Vegas , The Godfather Part II , the James Bond vehicle Diamonds Are Forever , and a two-part episode of Charlie's Angels – Angels in Vegas , starring Dean Martin – were filmed in the Tropicana's casino, theater, and pool area. And Martin's friend, Sammy Davis Jr., bought an 8% stake in the property in 1972, making him the first Black person to own part of a Strip hotel.
Infamy also found the Tropicana. When mobster Frank Costello, a friend of Kastel, survived an assassination attempt in May 1957, police found the Tropicana's raw winnings figures in his coat pocket. And an FBI investigation into the Tropicana in the late 1970s uncovered a Kansas City Mafia connection, a revelation that forced the sale of the property to the first of several corporate owners.
Over the years, numerous changes were made to the Tropicana to keep it competitive. The towers were added in the late 1970s and 1986. A 1980s remodel added a lush five-acre pool area, complete with waterfalls, lagoons, and swimming blackjack tables, and tiki heads were placed around the property. For a time, the resort called itself "the Island of Las Vegas".
“It was an interesting thing to see the Tropicana evolve to keep up with the times,” says UNLV professor and historian David Schwartz. “Swimming blackjack was a real innovation.”
The Tropicana's last complete remodel, with a South Beach theme, was completed in 2011. The results of that remodel are still visible at the Tropicana today, but they look tired and fading like many of the older elements. Parts of the property still show life on a weekday evening – a few dozen patrons sit at Robert Irvine's restaurant, and the Laugh Factory always draws a crowd – but they struggle to lift the spirits of a property whose electronic marquee is currently thanking some 700 long-time employees who are about to lose their jobs. (In early March, Bally's held a job fair with 20 local employers, striving to connect their displaced future employees with new work.)
“I’m going to miss the people who work at the Tropicana. Some of them have been there since the 80s, the 90s,” says Basil. “I really liked the CEOs, the executives. They’ve been very good to us.”
Basil proudly notes that there has been live comedy at the Tropicana since 1988, when Rodney Dangerfield opened his comedy club, Rodney's Place, on the mezzanine that Laugh Factory now occupies. (Basil, who worked with Dangerfield on several of his films, has several homages to the great rooftop comic throughout the club. Respect .) Several comedy operators have occupied the space over the years, including an early iteration of Brad Garrett's Comedy Club. The Factory will survive the end of the Tropicana, says Basil; he is in negotiations with several large resorts interested in becoming the club's new home.
But while the Tropicana’s 36-year reign of comedy is impressive, it’s a distant second to the hotel’s greatest entertainment legacy: the revue Les Folies Bergere , which ran at the Tropicana for nearly 50 years and never ceased to be what Schwartz calls “a quintessential Vegas show.” When it premiered on Christmas Eve 1959, it came in strong with a cast of 80 performers and an excess of rhinestones, feathers, and flesh; a contemporary review in the Las Vegas Sun described it as “aucio, spicy and racy in the French manner and dazzling.” Folies is arguably a big part of the reason Vegas is associated with showgirls to this day.
Which brings us full circle to the legacy. Thanks to the Nevada State Museum and guest curator Karan Feder, you can look at one of the show’s incredible showgirl costumes today. The east-west street flanking the hotel to the north is Tropicana Avenue, and it will likely remain so long after its namesake disappears. ( Probably . Think Riviera Boulevard, renamed Elvis in 2016.) Surprisingly, one of the tiki heads from the “Island of Las Vegas” stage, hand-carved by Ben “Benzart” Davis, was somehow saved from a remodel; it now sits at the entrance of local favorite Frankie’s Tiki Room.
The stained-glass ceiling of the Tropicana casino may also be saved, although exact details are not available at this time. Bally emailed Weekly this official statement regarding the ceiling and other historical elements of the Tropicana: “We are committed to safeguarding our community’s rich heritage and ensuring that future generations can experience the magic of our past. Once finalized, we will share details regarding the preservation of the beautiful stained-glass ceiling above the casino floor.”
What is certain to outlive the Tropicana are the myths, stories, and legends that we will perpetuate long after the hotel is nothing more than museum pieces and memorabilia. The Stardust space-age sign and the Sands Cup Room still occupy people's perception of Las Vegas, even though both disappeared decades ago. We are about to discover the Tropicana's true magnitude in death. Perhaps the A's could consider changing its name to Las Vegas Islanders.
