My longtime friend and journalism colleague, Chris Sieroty, attended the gaming conference in Atlantic City, which featured Hard Rock Chairman Jim Allen as one of the speakers. He provided me with Allen's remarks on the company's Las Vegas project.

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The 20 months of construction transforming the former Mirage into the Hard Rock Las Vegas have attracted their fair share of comments on social media — especially the nearly 700-foot-tall guitar-shaped hotel tower.

Is it an eyesore? Or will it change visitors' impressions of the Strip?

One Reddit commentator wrote two months ago that the closure of The Mirage "feels like tearing down one of the most successful casinos in history to install a corporate brand experiment with huge expectations attached to it."

Hard Rock Entertainment, which is privately owned by the Seminole Tribe of Florida, has said little publicly since closing The Mirage in July 2024.

Last week in Atlantic City, Hard Rock Chairman Jim Allen provided some details and financial insight into the project, which the company hopes to open in late 2027 or early 2028. 

"What I can tell you is that we are on that schedule," Allen said at the East Coast Gaming Congress. 

Allen, one of eight gaming executives who spoke at the event, said the guitar-shaped tower, when finished, will be just shy of 700 feet. While it will eclipse its next tallest Strip neighbors — The Palazzo, Wynn Las Vegas and Resorts World — it will still be shorter than the Strip's tallest hotel, Fontainebleau, which stands at 729 feet. 

"It's a massive statement," Allen said of the Las Vegas development. "The technology that we're going to offer does not exist anywhere in Las Vegas. We believe it's truly the game-changer.

"There are a few technological things that have come into play that we recently signed. That will be the driver for the final opening date," Allen said, adding that "we have gone a little crazy with the pools that we've designed. It's not just a day club, but truly an ultra-high-end, five-star luxury experience."

The conference was held at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Atlantic City, formerly the bankrupt Trump Taj Mahal. The company purchased the resort in 2017 and reopened a year later under its new name.

Hard Rock bought The Mirage in 2022 from MGM Resorts International for $1.1 billion. The resort was closed for an overhaul of the property, which Steve Wynn developed and opened in 1989 at a then-unheard-of cost of $630 million. The Mirage's opening kicked off three decades of Strip development.

Hard Rock built the first guitar-shaped tower at the company's Seminole Hard Rock Casino Resort in Hollywood, Florida. It stands at 450 feet. 

Allen provided a few highlights about the Guitar Tower, saying the floor numbers are misleading given that the hotel begins "on top of an eight-story building." Construction has reached the 30th floor with 12 floors left to go. He called the site "the Strip's 50-yard line," saying the large rendering displayed at the conference was "not exaggerated to try to look impressive."

Unlike its effort to rename and refresh the Taj Mahal, Hard Rock is remaking The Mirage.

The property's iconic 54-foot-tall volcano and tropical island-like setting along the Strip were quickly bulldozed after closing. The glass atrium, porte cochere entrance, the dolphin enclosure and Siegfried and Roy's Secret Garden were also demolished. 

The 3,000-room Y-shaped hotel tower has been stripped of its gold glass and is being reconfigured.

As a private company, Hard Rock has not officially given a cost for the project. Allen suggested in 2023 that it would cost $4 billion to $5 billion. Allen said last week the company was financing 30 percent of the project, with Hard Rock providing 60 percent "equity." He didn't mention the remaining 10 percent.

"I don't believe in [being] overleveraged," he said. "So that building is based upon our cash and what we have stated publicly is that we could finish this building."

According to the website 500 Nations, which tracks tribal gaming, the guitar-shaped hotel is expected to have 600 rooms, but the capacity of the once 3,000-room former Mirage tower is unclear. The company declined to comment on the project.

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Spirit considering liquidation; LV airport officials believe routes would be picked up

Spirit Airlines, once the second busiest air carrier at Harry Reid International Airport, has all but disappeared from Las Vegas. Reports surfaced last week that the air carrier could be gone entirely from airports nationwide.

CNBC reported that the company, which has been trying to recover from its second bankruptcy in less than a year, was considering liquidation and cited rising jet fuel costs as a key driver. The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Spirit reached out to the Trump administration seeking an emergency bailout. 

Spirit, which has service between Las Vegas and markets such as Reno, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Houston, averages roughly 125 flights a week. 

Clark County Aviation Department spokeswoman Amanda Mazzagatti said in an email that if Spirit were to drop its Las Vegas-Reno routes, "It is likely another carrier will step in to serve that market."

The bankruptcy reorganization caused Spirit's overall passenger count to decline 42 percent in 2025 to 4.6 million, down from almost 8 million in 2024. In the first two months of 2026, Spirit's passenger count at Reid Airport is down 73 percent. Spirit fell out of the airport's top five carrier rankings last October.

Mazzagatti said other airlines picked up approximately half of Spirit's capacity last year following the bankruptcy. 

"In many cases, airlines independently move to fill gaps when routes are discontinued, without direct pursual from the airport," Mazzagatti said. "That said, not all routes were replaced, as some markets may have been oversaturated." 

At its peak, Spirit served 34 markets to Las Vegas. Of those, 21 were also served by two additional airlines and 13 by one additional airline.

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What I'm reading

⚽ Reno soccer stadium plans include hotel-casino, dining, retail — Jeffrey Meehan, Reno Gazette-Journal

Reno Pro Soccer is the mystery buyer of the Jones West Ford site for a 6,000-seat stadium for a professional soccer franchise.

💲 Sports betting industry spends $41 million to influence elections — Theodore Schleifer and Kenneth P. Vogel, The New York Times

Led by DraftKings, FanDuel and Fanatics, the industry aims to shape future regulation. 

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News, notes and quotes

💸 CEO: Prediction market competition 'driving up costs'

Sports betting operator BetMGM said last week that prediction markets are driving up the company's costs for marketing and incentives to attract and retain customers. Adam Greenblatt, CEO of the 50-50 joint venture company owned by MGM Resorts International and Entain Plc, said the company is "refining our approach to online sports betting marketing for the rest of the year under the assumption that current media conditions persist." Greenblatt said he is looking toward "an expedient outcome of the almost inevitable hearing of the pro-states rights, pro-tribal rights and anti-prediction markets case by [the U.S. Supreme Court]."

🌽 🥩 Is sports betting a commodity? 'No,' says a gaming consultant

Las Vegas-based gaming consultant Brendan Bussmann questioned whether the Commodity Futures Trading Commission should be overseeing prediction markets. He said the activity should not be considered a commodity. "Being a kid from Nebraska that knows a thing or two about real commodities like corn and beef, I know what is not a commodity: Who will win the Stanley Cup? Sports is gambling, no matter how many times Kalshi and other companies want to try and change the definition."

🏈 Just one of the Kalshi judges hails from a sports betting state  

Some readers had questions about the backgrounds of the three 9th Circuit Court of Appeals judges who oversaw last week's hearing on the Nevada Gaming Control Board's efforts to ban Kalshi and other prediction markets from offering sports betting in the state. All three judges were appointed to the court by President Donald Trump during his first term. Only one, Judge Bridget Shelton Bade of Phoenix, who previously served as a U.S. District Court judge in Arizona, is from a state with state-regulated sports betting. The other two judges, Ryan Nelson, of Idaho — who oversaw the hearing — and Kenneth Lee of Los Angeles, held administrative legal positions in the administration of President George W. Bush.

🎰 IGT names new president for casino-based gaming equipment

IGT named Mark Wadley as president of land-based gaming, meaning he will oversee the company's slot machine and gaming equipment business for casino floors. Wadley spent five years with Aristocrat, where he worked with IGT CEO Hector Fernandez. The company said Wadley's oversight will include global sales, product management, field services, manufacturing, marketing, external communications and government relations.