This morning, Wednesday, July 17, 2024, the iconic Mirage Las Vegas casino resort closed its gambling floor for the final time.
Owner Hard Rock International is shutting the influential casino resort to redevelop it into a Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Las Vegas. The new resort, complete with a giant glass guitar hotel tower, is set to open in 2027.
The casino floor closed for gaming at around 2 a.m. That was followed by an official closing ceremony at around 9 a.m. and the final closure to the public at 11 a.m.
Over the past week, various parts of the operation have already shut down and the casino was forced to hand out $1.6 million in progressive jackpots by Nevada regulations.
34-year-old The Mirage was a pioneer of a new era of luxury casino resorts in Sin City, kicking off the 1990s boom in construction on the Las Vegas Strip.
The Closure
Hard Rock International bought The Mirage in 2022 in a $1.1 billion deal. It announced earlier in 2024 that it would be closing the resort, which was first opened in 1989.
The final night for guests to stay at the property was on Sunday, June 14. The casino floor remained open until this morning.
The Mirage was known for ushering in the era of Las Vegas mega resorts with its massive scale and focus on luxury. Several of its iconic decorations have already been moved by Hard Rock. That included the 450 fish from the tanks behind the Mirage’s main front desk and the huge memorial statue to Siegfried and Roy.
The rest of The Mirage’s fixtures will be auctioned off or sold in a liquidation sale in August 2024. The casino resort’s 3,300 staff members, who are all being laid off, will get priority bidding on certain pieces of artwork and other fixtures.
The staff will be in line for a severance package of around $2,000 per year of service for employees under the influential Culinary Union, of which there are 1,700. Hard Rock says it expects to pay out around $80 million in total to laid off staff.
Mirage president Joe Lupo has also organized job fairs, with most other major casino resort operators in Vegas represented, for those looking for new employment now that The Mirage has closed.
127 employees who worked at The Mirage from opening day were given the ceremonial treatment at the casino resort’s closing ceremony. They shared the stage with Lupo, Hard Rock chairman Jim Allen, and long-time Wynn collaborator and Las Vegas casino executive Alan Feldman.
The History
The Mirage opened in 1989 as a pioneering example of the mega casino resort blueprint that would go on to dominate Las Vegas.
It was the brainchild of now-disgraced casino mogul Steve Wynn, who went on to found Wynn Resorts before leaving the Nevada gambling business because of a string of sexual misconduct allegations in 2019.
The Mirage’s massive but luxurious scale set it apart from many of the casino resorts dominating Las Vegas at the time.
It embraced high-end culture with luxury fashion outlets and destination eateries taking center stage. It was also one of the first casino resorts to build a giant attraction out front, facing Las Vegas Boulevard, in the form of its now iconic Mirage Volcano, which gave daily free shows to passing potential customers.
Wynn penned a metaphorical farewell note to the influential casino resort from his home in California this week.
Somewhat brazenly, given the manner of his unceremonious departure from the Las Vegas gambling scene, Wynn used an extended metaphor of femininity throughout the piece, which was titled, “Homage to Lady Mirage”.
“She was most definitely not actually a mirage, but a dazzling and commanding reality. The largest hotel ever built at that point in history, anywhere in the world,” he wrote.
“Following the 1989 arrival of Mirage, we rushed into a virtual doubling of the town’s capacity and became the fastest- growing city in America. To call The Mirage a catalyst would be an understatement.”
The Future
The Mirage’s closure is somewhat the marker of a new era for Las Vegas. In the last two years, Nevada’s gambling business has been going through a new and record-breaking boom, mostly powered by the huge casino resorts of the Las Vegas Strip.
Two major new casino resorts opened in the city at the end of 2023, the Durango and The Fontainebleau, after several years with no big new additions to the roster of large casino resorts.
That was then followed by the closure of the venerable Tropicana earlier in 2024, and now the Mirage.
The space once occupied by the pioneering resort is set to reopen in 2027 as Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Las Vegas. It will be the first Las Vegas Strip casino resort entirely owned and run by a tribal gaming operator, as Hard Rock International’s parent company is the Seminole Tribe of Florida.
David is an online casino expert who specializes in online slots and boasts over 10 years experience writing about iGaming. He has written for a wide range of notable publications, including eSports Insider and WordPlay Magazine.
David graduated Derby University with a BA Degree in English Literature and Creative Writing.