On March 21, the Nevada Gaming Commission (NGC) voted to approve licenses for executives from Bally’s Corp. as the company prepares to close the longstanding Tropicana Las Vegas April 2.
In the run-up to the closure, the company has been completing various clerical and regulatory tasks, including filing paperwork to both the Gaming Control Board and Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation.
Approximately 700 employees will be affected by the shutdown, and Bally’s has worked to provide resources to workers, including job fairs. At the recent hearing, Senior Vice President Ameet Patel said that internal feedback regarding the transition has been positive.
According to CDC Gaming Reports, Patel told the commission that the property expects to retain about 600 of those employees up until the closing date and slowly whittle that number down to 100 in the following 90 days.
After that, only security, maintenance and engineering staff will remain on site. The exact demolition plan for the resort has yet to be finalized, the company said.
The site will eventually be cleared to make way for a $1.5 billion, 33,000-seat ballpark for the Oakland A’s, which is slated to be completed in time for the 2028 season. Bally’s will construct a new casino resort on the remaining acreage of the plot.
The other topic of discussion at the meeting was Bally’s recent takeover bid from Standard General, a hedge fund owned by Bally’s Chairman Soo Kim.
The offer, which was first reported March 11, seeks to buy out the remaining shares of the company at $15 per share, a steep dropoff from a previous bid of $38 per share in January 2022. Standard General is Bally’s largest shareholder, with a 23 percent stake.
Commissioners acknowledged that there has been a lot of discussion about the current state of the company and pressed Bally’s representatives for more information on the matter.
However, the company’s Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President Marcus Glover asserted that he was removed from the matter and could not give additional details.
“Unfortunately, there’s not much I can say outside of what’s been made public,” Glover said, per CDC. “The board has formed a special committee to consider the offer and at some point will engage professional services to form a legal and financial advisory to help them through this process.”
Dan Reaser, an attorney for Bally’s, echoed these sentiments and told the commission that there was “very little we can say” at this time.
