The Las Vegas Strip will welcome its first new resort and casino opening in more than a decade when Resorts World Las Vegas (RWLV) officially opens its doors on Thursday.
Not since the Cosmopolitan launched in 2010 has Las Vegas welcomed a truly brand new casino-resort to the fold, with Genting Group’s US$4 billion spectacle located at the northern end of the Strip also representing the city’s emergence from the devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic.
RWLV will open at 11pm on Thursday (Las Vegas time) with a series of celebratory events planned for the days and weeks ahead including a 4 July performance by Miley Cyrus at the resort’s Ayu Dayclub that will be broadcast live on a giant video screen located on one of its hotel towers.
Genting’s long-awaited Las Vegas dream will offer more than 40 F&B outlets, a 5,000-capacity concert and entertainment venue, 70,000 square feet of dedicated retail space, 250,000 square feet of meeting and banquet space, a 5.5-acre pool complex and 117,000 square feet of casino floor with 117 table games and 1,400 slot machines, plus five private gaming salons.
It will boast 3,500 hotel rooms across three Hilton brands – Las Vegas Hilton at Resorts World, Conrad Las Vegas at Resorts World and Crockfords Las Vegas – and has been touted as the most technologically advanced property on the Strip with cashless payment technology resort-wide, including on the gaming floor.
RWLV will also connect with the Las Vegas Convention Center campus via SpaceX founder Elon Musk’s underground tunnel system.
“We’re so lucky that we’re opening at this time,” said RWLV President Scott Sibella in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “We were going to open one way or another. We planned this a year and a half ago. We announced the date. But it’s clearly getting better in Las Vegas.”
Sibella also pointed to Chinese New Year as an opportunity for RWLV to truly exhibit its potential appeal to the overseas Asian market – even if international travel right now remains more dream than reality
“We have an edge from our properties over there (in Asia), but we know it won’t change overnight,” Sibella told The Nevada Independent.
“My hope is it gets better by the end of the year, and we see the next Chinese New Year as a big celebration. But we’re not counting on that right away.”
RWLV sits on the site formerly occupied by the iconic Stardust. Owner Boyd gaming demolished the Stardust in 2006 to build a new US$4.8 billion IR to be known as Echelon Place, but the 2009 Global Financial Crisis ended that dream and Boyd sold the land to Genting in 2013 for US$350 million.
Nomura analysts said earlier this year that the opening of RWLV would add 6% to the company’s 2022 EBITDA but that the property would likely remain loss making at the net profit level for at least a few years.
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