Though it opened back in 1946, the Golden Nugget is still one of the most popular resorts to visit in Las Vegas. Walking through the property past the enclosed pool area with waterfall gives you a special kind of feeling. The casino floor is a good size full of machines, tables and numerous spinning Wheel of Fortune Wheels. It is the largest resort in Downtown Vegas with over 2400 rooms. If you are a person who takes Uber or Lyft, it has the most organized pickup area of all the resorts on the Fremont Street Experience in Downtown Las Vegas. That’s the current Golden Nugget. Now we are going to take you back in time for an overview of the history of the Golden Nugget.
It opened in 1946 and that makes it one of the oldest resorts/casinos/hotels in all of Las Vegas. Legendary Downtown Vegas entrepreneur of hotels and casinos Jackie Gaughan had owned a stake in the hotel. What put its place in Las Vegas history is that it is the first structure that was designed from the ground up.
Two men by the name of Guy McAfee and Buck Blaine were the ones who oversaw the construction of the original property back in 1945. It was the most luxurious resort and is still full of luxury when it opened back in August of 1946.
After it was incorporated, Guy McAfee became the resorts first president. To make the Golden Nugget bigger, adjoining property was also acquired. In 1972, the operation changed when Steve Wynn would become part of the company.
When Wynn was part of the Golden Nugget as its President and CEO, the image would change. There were famous commercials with Wynn and Frank Sinatra on TV publicizing the hotel. 1977 would be the year that the establishment would have its first hotel rooms. There would be 579 to be exact. There were additional hotel towers added as well in the 1980s. In 2000, the property was sold to MGM Mirage.
Then in 2004, the Golden Nugget was sold to Poster Financial Group. An interesting fact about that is one of Las Vegas’s most famous sports stars, Andre Agassi was part of the 2004 group of investors. A year later, renovations would come and another group named Houston-based Laundry’s Restaurant Inc became the new owners. A new hotel tower of 500 rooms occurred.
The Golden Nugget's gold ATM is also one of its signature things where people can actually buy gold for cash.
Today as mentioned above, there are fine restaurants, entertainment and plenty of gaming at the Golden Nugget for a person to enjoy many different things of the big property downtown on the Fremont Street Experience.
Below please find a variety of different Golden Nugget chips we sell on our website including ones that were used for Faro. Click each picture to purchase the chip:
