“Slots A Fun will be redone,” vows Ruffin. The deal also includes a separate but attached casino. “We’ll upgrade Adventuredome, which has 2.5 million visitors a year, currently $30 million volume.” We’ll put a theater in with Cirque Du Soleil,” a 2,000-seat addition he estimates at $11 million. “We plan to remodel slowly so we don’t take too many rooms out of service.

“To build a new casino hotel these days, you can’t do it for less than a million dollars a room.” That would make replacing Circus Circus a $4 billion proposition. “We made an offer we thought was preemptive, and we were high bidder.” Ruffin, who has had a gaming license in Nevada since his 1997 purchase of the old Frontier, added, “We were approved unanimously by the Nevada Gambilng Board.”Ĭircus Circus, opened in 1968, looks a little tired. “We’d been trying to buy the thing for a long time and someone from MGM came by and said they finally put it on the market,” Ruffin says. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images) Getty Images MGM Resorts International announced on Tuesday that it is selling the Las Vegas Strip property for USD 825 million to an affiliate of Treasure Island Hotel & Casino owner Phil Ruffin. LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - OCTOBER 16: An exterior view shows the Circus Circus Las Vegas on October 16.