I only ever played in the Stardust one time, which turns out to be a big mistake on my part, as it was shortly thereafter reduced to rubble in one of the biggest corporate miscalculations Vegas has ever seen.
The Stardust was loaded with history, and great video poker. The property was dated, though (just like Wayne Newton) and the owners, Boyd Gaming, decided it would be a smart thing to blow up a profit-making casino and put up a brand new multi-billion dollar mega-resort.
With the Stardust obliterated to nothing but dust, a few stories of concrete parking garage were put up just as the Great Recession of 2007-2008 hit.
Boyd was left holding the bag full of star dust. Construction was halted. A working casino was gone. A few hundred million dollars were lost.
Not only was the Stardust a victim, we also lost the Westward Ho, and Boyd sold the Barbary Coast, which was remodeled into the
Echelon place sat as a sorry rebar-laden bare concrete ediface for a decade, a monument to their miscalculation that the boom in Vegas would last forever.
It could have been worse, though... Fontainebleau.
Our first trip to Vegas in the early 90's, we stayed at Stardust in motel-like rooms in the back. Oh how much we've learned since then!
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