What are the oldest casinos on the Las Vegas Strip?
The pending Tropicana closure will take out the third-oldest casino on the Strip – a place with a historic skyline that has a tendency to look different every few decades.
Still, there are a handful of hotel-casinos that have stood the test of time in the city’s short history. Here are the five oldest casinos still operating on the Strip as of March 2024:
Flamingo: opened in December 1946
Sahara: opened in October 1952
Tropicana: opened in April 1957* (closing April 2)
The Linq: opened in 1959 as the Flamingo Capri.
Caesars Palace: opened in April 1966
Circus Circus: opened in October 1968
But Las Vegas’ origins as a gambling mecca began much earlier, a few miles north in downtown Las Vegas in the “Glitter Gulch.” Several notable names began as hotels or hotel-casinos and still operate today. Here they are as of March 2024:
Golden Gate hotel-casino: January 1906
Hotel Apache (now attached to Binion’s): March 1932
El Cortez: November 1941
Golden Nugget: August 1946
Four Queens: June 1966
McKenna Ross is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. Contact her at mross@reviewjournal.com. Follow @mckenna_ross_ on X.
