Palms Names New G.M., Former Strat G.M. and V.P. Steve Thayer
Palms has named its new General Manager, Steve Thayer. It’s Stephen, if you’re nasty.
Thayer moves into the position vacated by Cynthia Kiser Murphey.
Everything’s all nicey-nice on the surface with these changes, but please, it’s Las Vegas.
Steve Thayer was unceremoniously fired as G.M. and V.P. of Strat by Golden Entertainment in June 2024. Of course, we broke the story.
That’s the same month Cynthia Kiser Murphey announced she was “stepping down” at Palms. Of course, we broke the story.
Starting to see a pattern here? Not with these executive moves, our breaking every Las Vegas story, ever. Please stay focused.
Anyhoo, not everything has to be about us, probably.
Steve Thayer takes the reins of Palms on Sep. 16, 2024.
Thayer has been in the casino and hospitality industry for decades. He was with Caesars Entertainment for 15 years at casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City (motto: “Exactly like Las Vegas, except for the pretty much everything”), as well as Wyndham International, which doesn’t have casinos, so why even put that on a resume if you ask us?
Palms is owned and operated by the San Manuel tribe. Working with or for a Native American tribe is, well, different.
The news of Thayer’s new gig was announced via news release from the San Manuel Gaming and Hospitality Authority (SMGHA). This cabal (technically, a “governmental instrumentality”) was created so tribal leaders wouldn’t get the same scrutiny other casino operators are subjected to. Nothing to see here!
Palms and Strat have a lot of similarities, so Thayer should be in his element. Both casinos cater to a mix of tourists and locals, for starters.
Expectations are modest for Palms, for the most part. The resort makes about $30 million EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) a year, modest by Strip standards.
Palms was a way of the tribe dipping its toes into the Las Vegas market and to give its southern California players a perk. The tribe’s California casino, which prints money, was rebranded from San Manuel Casino to Yaamava’ Resort & Casino, just to make life interesting for their marketing team. And don’t get us started about that random-ass apostrophe. What purpose does that apostrophe serve other than trying to annoy bloggers? It is a prank? Payback for that whole colonial genocide thing? Tribal casinos are exempt from U.S. taxes. So, bygones!
Oh, go cancel yourself, you big baby.
Actually, Yaamava, with or without the apostrophe is very popular and was recently voted the best casino not in Las Vegas. Which is like saying you’re the best Pope outside of the Vatican. All other Popes are invalid. Since we’re already canceled, we can say anything we want.
You can tell these USA Today polls are legit, because Palms was voted best Las Vegas casino. There are lots of ways to define “best,” and it’s very subjective, but there is literally no definition where Palms is the best casino in Las Vegas, all due respect. It’s a perfectly fine resort. It’s just not the best of anything. The USA Today description for Palms says, “Palms Casino Resort is known for serving as the setting of MTV’s 2002 season of ‘The Real World,’ as well as a conga line of celebrities who like to party.” When you’re known for being on a TV show nearly a quarter century ago, it’s probably time to shake things up a bit.
Recently, Palms has been overshadowed by the massive investment being made across the street at Rio.
We used to love Palms, but then they started using all lower case in their Tweets, so we started feuding and we blocked them and they blocked us back, so it’s a whole thing.
Palms has a long and glorious history which we aren’t going to get into here because we are very busy scheduling a tour to promote our new hit song.
Enjoy this world premiere of a song we made for you. We can't stop singing it and hope you do not have the same experience, probably. pic.twitter.com/f0BKdxYJWj
— Vital Vegas (@VitalVegas) September 7, 2024
Palms has managed to avoid drama since the tribe bought the place from Station Casinos in 2021. We broke that story, too.
There was lots of Palms drama prior to 2021, including the epic trainwreck that was Kaos. There’s a documentary in the works about it (broke it), but it’s taking forever to air.
Prior to Station Casinos selling Palms, they launched an ad campaign touting a massive overhaul to the off-Strip casino. The tagline was, “From Dust to Gold.” We fixed it.
What does a change in leadership at a casino mean to average folks like you and we? Not much, typically.
From what we know of Steve Thayer, he’s a good guy. Newly married, beloved by staff, affable and unpretentious.
Now, if he can just address the sentence case thing in Palms’ Tweets. No pressure.
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