Horseshoe (ex-Bally's / first MGM Grand)
The site of the first MGM Grand — a name that changed after one of the worst days in the city's history.
Key facts
- The resort now called Horseshoe opened in 1973 as the original MGM Grand, built by Kirk Kerkorian; it later became Bally's and was rebranded Horseshoe Las Vegas in 2022.
- On November 21, 1980, a fire at the MGM Grand killed 85 people — the deadliest disaster in Nevada history — and led to sweeping changes in hotel fire-safety codes across the United States, including retrofitted sprinklers and smoke detectors.
- The resort is home to the World Series of Poker, which relocated its main events to this property.
Narration transcript
On your right is the Horseshoe — but look at that building and know it started life as something else entirely. When it opened in 1973, this was the first MGM Grand, built by Kirk Kerkorian, the same man who kept building the biggest hotel in the world. Over the years it became Bally's, and then in 2022 it took the storied Horseshoe name.
There is one day this building will always carry. On the twenty-first of November, 1980, a fire swept through the MGM Grand and eighty-five people lost their lives — the deadliest disaster in the history of Nevada. In its aftermath, the way America builds hotels changed: sprinklers, smoke detectors and fire codes were rewritten across the entire country, and countless lives since have been saved because of what was learned here.
Today the resort has found yet another identity — it's the home of the World Series of Poker, where every summer thousands of players chase a gold bracelet and the largest prizes in the game. One more building, several lives.
Keep rolling north on the Boulevard. On your left, you're about to reach the grandest address on the whole Strip — the columns, the marble, the fountains, and the name of an empire. Watch for Caesars Palace, and note the spelling on the sign, because there's a deliberate joke hiding in it.