VEGAS MYTHS BUSTED: Circus Circus is Next on Implosion List

Posted on: September 30, 2024, 08:12h. 

Last updated on: October 2, 2024, 09:36h.

Corey Levitan Read More
Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Entertainment, Expert Insight, Las Vegas, Restaurants, Las Vegas Myths.

“Circus Circus is going to be sold, demolished, and they’re going to build a brand new megaresort –probably similar to Fontainebleau, Resorts World, Wynn, and Encore at the north end of the Strip.”

Circus Circus opened in 1968 as a circus-themed casino. Over the decades, it added four hotel towers — in 1972, 1975, 1986, and 1996. It also absorbed its former neighbor, Slots-A-Fun, in 1979 and added an amusement park, the Adventuredome, in 1993. (Image: Google Street View)

The above words were uttered in a video made by some anonymous dude with the trustworthy grey hair, glasses, and business suit of a newscaster. He delivered his bombshell report to X/Twitter on September 27.

“This is from an inside source,” Mr. Fake Newscaster Dude claimed. “It’s happening 100%, and it hasn’t even broke on the news. Vital Vegas, nobody knows about it yet, but you got it here from me first.”

Consider the Source

The tweet that got Las Vegas vloggers vlogging came from @GamblingNews123, your trusted source for gambling news since Sept. 27, 2024. (Image: X/Twitter)

The Twitter/X account is named “Gambling News,” but it couldn’t get any closer to that handle than @GamblingNews123 because the account wasn’t registered until … wait for it … May 2024.

Before its breaking Circus Circus news, @GamblingNews123 tweeted 32 times. Not one of those tweets broke a shred of gambling news — unless you count “The Mirage is officially closed” on July 17, its official closing date. (Who saw that coming?!)

In fact, 17 of the account’s tweets were slanderous (if untrue) allegations of criminal activity levied against gambling influencer Scott Richter.

@GamblingNews123 is a troll account. It was apparently started by a limousine driver who goes by the name LimoRob on TikTok.

As of Sunday, @GamblingNews123 has 484 Twitter/X followers, nearly all of whom signed on after the Circus Circus tweet, which generated 150K views.

The Evidence

The Lucky the Clown sign stands where the carousel used to. Back in 1971, author Hunter S. Thompson described Circus Circus as “the sixth Reich,” explaining that it’s “what the whole hep world would be doing Saturday night if the Nazis had won the war.” (Image: Library of Congress)

Circus Circus is old, as is its 89-year-old owner, Phil Ruffin. And, thanks to the risks assumed by Resorts World and Fontainebleau — well maybe not all the risks allegedly assumed by Resorts World — property on the north end of the Strip continues to increase in value.

So yes, Ruffin could offload Circus Circus any time, and there are rumors floating around that it is for sale, along with Treasure Island.

But no such sale is even close to happening yet, according to people familiar with the situation, so there are no plans to possibly know regarding what will become of Circus Circus.

There is compelling circumstantial evidence against this latest prediction, however.

Prognosticating the demise of Circus Circus is hardly revolutionary. The Strip’s only kind of kid-friendly property has been targeted for implosion since this 2015 Motley Fool article claimed it “simply isn’t worth fixing up at this point.”

Lumping it in with Excalibur and Luxor, that article’s author wrote: “It would cost billions to entirely revamp them, so they’ll keep them up just long enough to squeeze some money out of them until imploding them for a new resort.”

All three resorts continue to stand and earn profits for their owners nine years later.

Since public corporation MGM Resorts sold Circus Circus to private owner Ruffin for $825 million in 2019, we no longer have a window into the property’s financial performance. However, Circus Circus appears to be one of the most profitable casino resorts on the Strip.

According to Vital Vegas, its annual earnings are $90 million before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (a fancy way of saying casino cash flow). That means it has no debt, while most of its competitors work at a loss if you figure in costs (including interest on debt).

In addition, Ruffin sank $30 million of improvements into Circus Circus in 2022, which isn’t the kind of thing you do for a property you figure will be imploded by its next owner.

But let’s, for some reason, give LimoRob the benefit of the doubt. Let’s allow that his tip came from an anonymous insider who is actually both inside and real — maybe someone he picked up at the airport and drove to Circus Circus.

Who’s to say that this insider didn’t misunderstand the truth, or just repeat a false rumor?

The Tropicana is about to be imploded next week. And, Strip implosions always come with guessing-game gossip about which Strip casino will be next on the list.

Or maybe the insider intentionally misrepresented the truth for a vendetta or some other personal reason.

Maybe the insider was actually Scott Richter in disguise.

Social Distortion

After a few weeks, this story — not unlike this one about Disney purchasing the Excalibur that we busted earlier this month — will be replaced by others in the fake Vegas news cycle, and @GamblingNews123 will still have all the followers it gained from the experience.

Like predictions of the end of the world supposedly made 500 years ago by Nostradamus, all forecasts like this are eventually forgotten, which allows them to be resurrected again and again.

Eventually, of course, Circus Circus will be both sold and imploded — perhaps even in the same financial quarter. And at that point, whichever blogger or vlogger made that prediction the most recently will claim to have gotten the facts right but the date slightly off.

We’ll leave the last word here to Vital Vegas founder Scott Roeben himself. He retweeted @GamblingNews123’s Circus Circus news along with the following message…

“He’s correct. We haven’t heard anything, and we hear everything.”

Look for “Vegas Myths Busted” every Monday on Casino.org. Click here to read previously busted Vegas myths. Got a suggestion for a Vegas myth that needs busting? Email corey@casino.org.