Here’s Our Perfunctory Story About the Tropicana Implosion

By Scott Roeben, on October 09 2024
3 min read 7 comments
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Oy, with the implosion show at Trop, already. Yes, we’ve been watching “Nobody Wants This” on Netflix.

We’ve trying to figure out a way we can get around doing a story about the Tropicana implosion, but to no avail. If we never hear the half-witted term “Trop Drop” again, it will be too soon.

We’ll try and make this quick and painless.

This was the first Las Vegas casino implosion with drones. Happily, nobody put out an eye.

The Tropicana was imploded, with the requisite hoopla, at 2:30 a.m. on Oct. 9, 2024.

Here’s a video with all the speechery and pew-pew.


There was a drone show prior to the implosion and a fantastic fireworks show.

Here’s another look.

The implosion itself lasted about 20 seconds.

Here are some photos of the Trop site after the dust settled. As we shared on Twitter, this is easily the neatest implosion ever in the history of the world.

Everything that can be said about the Tropicana implosion has been said, in a very boring way, by our local media.

Yes, Tropicana had a long history. However, its loss isn’t as dramatic as many would have you believe.

A wildly popular Las Vegas-focused Twitter account said it best.

In recent years, Trop hasn’t been a thing.

It didn’t make much money for its owners, and the plan was always to demolish the place to make way for something new and shiny. It’s Las Vegas, after all.

A lot of the chatter around Trop’s closure and implosion has been around the site presumably being cleared for a new A’s ballpark and casino resort.

The only issue is neither of the entities involved (the A’s and Bally’s Corp.) have shown any evidence of financing for these ambitious and expensive projects. Just a lot of hopes and dreams and prayers and pledges and concepts of plans.

If the A.I. prompt is “Fisher and Kaval,” this is what you get.

This complete lack of financing specifics doesn’t seem to deter the breathless enthusiasm of Las Vegas media outlets from continuing to parrot what they’re told by A’s officials, Bally’s Corp. officials and Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) officials.

Or as well call them, the “Trifecta of Delusional Bullshit.” Which was, as you might have guessed, the name of our band in high school.

There’s a graphic on the Internet, it must be true.

We aren’t going to get into the details of why they’ve all lost their collective minds. Now is a time to say goodbye to classic Las Vegas hotel and casino.

Honestly, the demolition of a perfectly good casino to make room for a parking lot is tragic. The same thing happened with Riviera. The former New Frontier is the Strip’s broom closet.

We don’t doubt somebody will build a casino on the Trop site someday, but it won’t be Bally’s Corp. (unless the land owner, GPLI decides it doesn’t like money). A resort on that site would be a particularly terrible idea given the fact nine acres would presumably be devoted to an imaginary ballpark. Our sources say such a resort would not make money due to FAA height restrictions, thus limiting the number of hotel rooms.

Can the ballpark be built on its on at the Trop site? Also, no.

Were the A’s looking at the Rio site as a better alternative? We hear yes, but Oak View Group is now doing soil testing in the Rio parking lot’s 22 acres for a potential NBA arena.

There are a lot of moving parts, but we already told you we aren’t going to talk about those as we are saying goodbye to a classic Las Vegas hotel and casino.

No, MGM Resorts isn’t going to swoop in and buy the site. MGM Resorts doesn’t own anything anymore. They operate casinos.

No, the A’s don’t get taxpayer dollars until they spend $100 million of their own money.

No, we aren’t being negative, we are stating facts and making logical, informed conclusions. If it sounds like a cluster, that’s because it is a cluster. Don’t shoot the messenger.

No, these thoughts are not just filler so we can say we wrote a story about the Tropicana implosion.

Yes, we are done, as we have real things to write about, rather than whimsical nonsense being foisted on the public by well-meaning but misguided journalists who don’t have the sources we do.

The A’s/Bally’s/Trop saga/debacle continues to unfold, and you can bet we’ll be here to origami the living hell out of it because somebody’s got to do it.