The CEO of Las Vegas-based convenience store and travel center operator LV Petroleum said Wednesday the company is ready to "take over the whole exit" at Primm, including operating one of the closed hotel-casinos.

Kristopher Roach told The Nevada Independent that LV Petroleum has been in talks with Affinity Gaming and the Primm family about keeping the Flying J truck stop and its adjacent facilities open. Affinity announced earlier this month that the last of Primm's three casinos would permanently close, along with Primm Center, which has several food and sundries outlets and the truck stop. Also closing is the Primm Valley Lotto Store, just across the state line in California.

"We don't want it to go dark. We don't want to lose the employees," Roach said. "We have a huge interest in the market. We've had a couple of meetings."

LV Petroleum operates 76 TA travel centers nationwide, including three in Nevada. Roach said the truck stop would be rebranded as a TA Travel Center, with the site at the Nevada-California state line becoming the company's first along Interstate 15.

"We're a Las Vegas-born and based company, and we'll have over 6,000 employees," Roach said. "We want to assume operations as quickly as possible. It's an important location."

He said the company would like to reopen Whiskey Pete's Hotel and Casino, which has been closed since December 2024. "We have gaming partners that can help," Roach said, adding that restaurants and convenience stores associated with TA Travel Centers and other locations have slot machine route operations.

"We believe we're a perfect fit," Roach said.

On Thursday, Primm President Cory Clemetson, the grandson of town founder Ernie Primm, said in a statement that the family has "been working tirelessly to find qualified partners to operate as many of these businesses as possible."

However, he said no agreement has been reached "with any specific potential partner," and the comments surrounding LV Petroleum's offer "are overstated and premature."

"Our family is currently considering opportunities involving multiple well-established operators that have successfully operated similar hotel-casino properties in Nevada. Rest assured that we will continue to explore all viable options as we work toward the best possible solution, especially for the hundreds of Primm employees and their families dealing with this difficult situation," Clemetson added.

Some 344 Primm workers are losing their jobs, nearly 75 percent of whom have to vacate their company-owned apartments behind the casinos. 

Roach said LV Petroleum would keep the apartment complex behind the Buffalo Bill's and Primm Valley open.

LV Petroleum, which operates the TA Travel Center near the Railroad Pass Casino in Henderson and TA Travel Centers in West Wendover and Carlin, submitted a letter of interest regarding the truck stop earlier this month to Primm operator Affinity Gaming, which is owned by Z Capital Partners, a New York-based asset management firm.

Drivers interviewed by The Nevada Independent at the Flying J Truck Stop earlier this month said they are concerned about finding a place to gas up and rest if the Primm location closes. The truck stop, adjacent to the closed Whiskey Pete's Hotel and Casino, has 10 fuel lanes and multiple showers and facilities for drivers. One trucker said he would rely on Flying J's corporate offices to provide alternate facilities.

Affinity Gaming leases the casinos and other businesses in the community, 40 miles south of Las Vegas, from the Primm family. A spokesman for the Primm family could not be reached. The Primm family paid for a full-page advertisement in the Las Vegas Review-Journal on May 17, vowing "a return to better days."  

A few days after that ad ran, Affinity CEO Scott Butera told the control board that Primm was "just not viable as a casino operation."  

Butera told the regulators on May 21 that the company was "working very closely with the landlord, looking at either [another operator] potentially taking over the asset or hopefully selling the asset." He told the control board that "a potential suitor" submitted a letter of interest for the property.

"We're hoping that we'll have a transition on the property, but we are exiting as the tenant," he said.

Vijay Sekhon, an outside legal counsel for Z Capital Partners, confirmed the interest from LV Petroleum last week to the Nevada Gaming Control Board, adding that the board overseeing the Primm properties "conveyed his support to do a transaction that would maximize value for all parties."

Sekhon said the Affinity board received the LV Petroleum letter on May 13 "and, within hours, got the special committee together to negotiate and get it signed," which acknowledged the board was in receipt of the document. The letter's existence was not publicly known until it was mentioned during last week's control board hearing.

"If the LV Petroleum bid is not acceptable to the landlord, we are definitely open to any alternative," Sekhon said. "[We] want to do whatever we can to maintain maximum jobs and continuity." 

Gaming Control Board Chairman Mike Dreitzer told Sekhon he expected Z Capital, which acquired the Primm casino operations in the 2010 bankruptcy reorganization of Herbst Gaming, to keep the regulatory agency apprised of "potential opportunities that could keep Primm open and operating."

Updated at 9:45 a.m. on 5/28/2026 to include comments from the Primm family.
Updated at 10:35 a.m. on 5/27/2026 to include comments from LV Petroleum.