Rain Swamps Circa Sportsbook, Las Vegas Casinos
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Las Vegas casino owner Derek Stevens vowed not to let the rain that soaked his Circa Resort sportsbook dampen the wagering action.
“We are open now and will be open tomorrow,” Stevens tweeted early Friday. Stevens owns Circa and two other downtown casinos, the Golden Gate and D Las Vegas.
A massive thunderstorm that unleashed strong winds and heavy rainfall barreled across the Las Vegas Valley Thursday, damaging some of the area’s well-known hotel-casinos, including Circa.
According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, wind gusts topped 70 mph, knocking out power for 7,300 electric utility customers. Some locations in the desert valley recorded more than an inch of rain, causing flash flooding.
This is one of three rare storms that have rolled through the area in recent weeks.
All #PhotoCredit to #LineItUp
— Derek Stevens (@DerekJStevens) July 29, 2022
A night we’ll never forget. It’s #Vegas
FYI we are open now and will be open tomorrow.
I love #LasVegas https://t.co/AyViyk0B56
Casinos Damaged
Cellphone video posted on social media sites late this week shows rainwater ripping through the ceiling at Caesars Palace and Planet Hollywood hotel-casinos on the Las Vegas Strip. Another video shows a river of floodwater gushing through the Linq hotel-casino parking lot.
North of the Strip in downtown Las Vegas, floodwater found its way through the towering wall of television screens at Circa’s sportsbook, billed as the world’s largest sportsbook.
By Friday morning, video on social media sites showed Circa crews mopping up the water at the sportsbook.
“A night we’ll never forget,” Stevens tweeted.
Circa First New Downtown Resort In Decades
Circa opened in late 2020 at Fremont and Main streets in downtown Las Vegas’ Glitter Gulch.
An adults-only resort, Circa was the first hotel-casino built from the ground up in that area in 40 years.
The multi-level sportsbook at Circa houses a Vegas Sports Information Network broadcast studio. The Las Vegas-based network, known as VSiN, is owned by DraftKings Sportsbook. The network also has its original studio at the sportsbook in the South Point hotel-casino on the southern end of the Strip.
Body In Lake Mead Barrel
This week’s flooding in Las Vegas starkly contrasts recent news about drought-related low water levels at Lake Mead, about 30 miles east of Las Vegas.
With the water level plunging, recent discoveries at the lake have included a corroded metal barrel with skeletal remains inside.
A police investigation revealed the man in the barrel was shot to death, probably in the late 1970s or early '80s. This period coincides with the Las Vegas Mafia era depicted in the 1995 movie “Casino,” directed by Martin Scorsese.
Police have not determined the barrel victim’s identity or named any potential criminal suspects.
However, speculation has arisen that the man in the barrel might have been a victim of the mobsters who were active in Las Vegas during that period, including the Chicago Outfit’s Tony “The Ant” Spilotro.
In “Casino,” actor Joe Pesci portrays a character based on Spilotro.
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