Resorts World (Stardust site) + Circus Circus
The site of the Stardust — the skim that became Casino — now the first new Strip resort in a decade.
Key facts
- The Stardust opened in 1958, once billed with the largest hotel and the largest sign in the world; it was the center of a notorious casino skimming operation run through Argent Corporation's Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal, with Chicago Outfit enforcer Anthony “Tony the Ant” Spilotro, later dramatized in the film Casino.
- The Stardust was imploded in 2007; Resorts World Las Vegas opened on the site in 2021 at a cost of about $4.3 billion, the first brand-new resort built on the Strip in roughly a decade.
- Circus Circus opened in 1968, developed by Jay Sarno; it appears in Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever, and its marquee mascot is Lucky the Clown.
Narration transcript
On your left, that sleek modern tower is Resorts World — and, you guessed it, it's a “site of.” This was the Stardust, which opened in 1958 boasting the biggest hotel and the biggest sign in the world. But the Stardust's real fame is what went on behind the counting-room door. For years it was the hub of a massive skim — mob money quietly siphoned off the top before it was ever counted — run by the gambler Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal and the enforcer Tony Spilotro. If you've seen the movie Casino, you've seen the Stardust; that's the whole story, barely fictionalized.
The Stardust came down in 2007, and Resorts World opened in its place in 2021 — about four-point-three billion dollars, and the first genuinely new resort built on the Strip in roughly a decade. The Stardust's famous sign, by the way, didn't die; we'll drive right past its retirement home before the tour ends.
Just beyond it is Circus Circus, opened in 1968 by Jay Sarno — the same showman who built Caesars Palace, now aiming at families instead of high-rollers, with actual trapeze acts over the casino floor. That mix of clowns and gambling is exactly what unnerved Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and it turned up in the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever. Watch for Lucky the Clown grinning down from the marquee.
Keep heading north toward Sahara Avenue. On your right, get ready for a whole cluster of ghosts — the Riviera, the Sahara, and the very first Strip resort of all — plus the invisible line where the city officially begins.