Locals Casinos and Resorts

by Steve Fey

Saturday, December 5, 2009

The theme for my articles here is stuff I like in Las Vegas. A bit broad, maybe, but that allows me to dabble a bit in areas that otherwise I’d have to skip. So, even though Eric James Miller’s Casino Beat series is a really excellent review of the local casino scene, I’m going to wade in this week from a bit different perspective. This is something I enjoyed learning about when I moved to Vegas, and something that visitors might not suspect exists. I refer to the resorts geared primarily for Southern Nevada residents. You will see these places referred to as “Local’s Casinos,” “Locals Casinos,” “Locals’ Casinos” or “Local’s Resorts.” That’s a lot of ways to phrase a name, so I’m just going to call them “locals casinos”.

A Memorial To Sam Boyd Located Inside Sam's Town
Photo by Steve Fey

In particular I’d like to speak of the granddaddy of all locals venues, the famous Sam’s Town on Boulder Highway. Prior to Sam’s Town, there were casinos and slot bars where local people played, of course, but nothing on the order of a resort with hotel and restaurant facilities such as everyone expects to find on the Strip. Sam’s Town changed all that, and added things not normally associated with Strip properties, such as a bowling alley, movie theaters, and a food court like you’d normally find in a mall.

This is the actual waterfall they call Mystic
Photo by Steve Fey

Sam’s Town is named for Sam Boyd, whose Boyd Gaming Corporation invented the Locals Resort when it opened Sam’s Town in 1979. Locals and observant visitors might also notice the name Sam Boyd on the stadium used by the University of Nevada Las Vegas on East Russell Road. Sam pretty much changed the entertainment scene for local Las Vegans, and I for one am grateful to him for doing so.

Boyd Gaming decided that local people would like to have an entertainment center of their own. Perhaps a place to grab a meal with the family, take in a movie, bowl a bit, and also a place to gamble where the odds weren’t quite so biased against the player as they seem to be along the Strip. The result was Sam’s Town, a complex that takes up about a full city block at Boulder Highway and Nellis Boulevard, just South of Flamingo Road.

Sam’s Town includes meeting facilities, which I have used when attending conferences and found to be quite nice. Sam’s town also has a 18-screen movie theater from Century, a bowling facility that’s always open (hey, you can bowl any time in Vegas, baby…)

Mystic Falls Park in a large indoor atrium, featuring animatronics, music and speech four times a day, a food court, multiple stores, several entertainment venues, including free jazz on Fridays plus comedy and musical performances, and of course, a casino. Plus, oh yes, an RV park next door. The casino features “over 100” video poker and slot machines in a non-smoking area, plus three levels of slots, video poker and table games. The video poker machines all feature “full pay” pay tables, which doesn’t mean that you’re guaranteed to win, but does mean that you can play longer for your money. And, I can say from experience, sometimes you really do win, and that makes for a great day! Finally, and this can be good for out-of-town guests whom you can’t accommodate at home, Sam’s Town offers shuttle service between the resort and Harrah’s on the Strip and the California Casino downtown.

An antique slot machine on display inside Sam's Town
Photo by Steve Fey

It turns out that Boyd Gaming had a good idea when they built Sam’s Town. They now own properties in six states, including two more Sam’s Towns, and they own the Coast Casinos in Nevada as well. In fact, Coast Casinos now operates Sam’s Town, and my players’ card is a Coast Card. In Downtown Las Vegas they own the California, Fremont, and Main Street Station properties. Boyd Gaming owns about a third of the locals resorts, but not the biggest and most famous of them. That distinction goes to Station Casinos which have had one property, Green Valley Ranch Resort, featured on a successful cable channel series. Station Casinos operates eight resorts under the name “Station” plus two “Fiestas” and also several other smaller casinos around Southern Nevada. When you add the eight Station Casino resorts, the two Fiesta Casino resorts, and the four Coast Casino resorts, you get a grand total of fourteen resort/hotel/casino combinations around the valley geared directly at local residents. Living-Las-Vegas maintains an active list of which companies own which properties. With the current musical-chair-like shifting of property ownerships, it can be difficult to keep it current, but check this page out and see if we’re current today! (We actually identify about 30 different properties as being locals casinos).

Downtown Las Vegas and the Strip are more than happy to accommodate local guests. Ask anybody. And both places are a good time to visit and play in (and I don’t mean simply play as in “gamble.”) But they can be difficult to get to, terribly crowded during popular weekends and holiday periods, and tend to cost more than most people can afford to spend on a regular basis. On the other hand, the locals resorts offer ease of access (they are local, after all,) and prices that make it seem like “old Vegas” is back. For instance, dinner at the Firelight Buffet at Sam’s town cost us $10 apiece the day before Thanksgiving. Except that we had two-for-one coupons we got with our player’s cards, so four of us ate a good buffet for about twenty bucks. Try finding prices like that on the strip! And, if you’re from out of town, you should know that the locals resorts never turn away a tourist, either. If you’d like to decompress a bit but still feel like you’re in Vegas, maybe one of the locals places is for you. You can drop in while staying on the Strip, or you could even opt to stay local. It’s a decision that, and this is rare in Las Vegas, makes for a situation in which you really can’t lose.

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