Las Vegas Now Has a Date for Tropicana Demolition

The hotel towers at Las Vegas’ Tropicana Hotel and Casino will officially meet their end in early October.

The demolition is part of the plans to build a new Las Vegas ballpark for MLB’s Oakland Athletics. Construction on that stadium is supposed to begin in April and the Athletics are hoping to start their new life in Vegas at the beginning of the 2028 season.

Bally’s, which owns the Tropicana, is planning a celebration and fireworks show on Oct. 8 to mark the end of the hotel, which is scheduled to be demolished in the early hours of Oct. 9 (around 2:30 a.m. local time).

The Tropicana had been a part of the Las Vegas scene since opening in 1957, a time in which it was the most expensive Las Vegas resort developed. It closed its doors for good in April 2024, just a couple of years after Bally’s purchased the resort from Penn National Gaming, which had owned it since 2015.

At one point, the resort was partially owned by Sammy Davis Jr. and was part of a mob skimming operation in the late 1970s that was investigated and exposed by an FBI operation called Operation Strawman.

The resort’s demise is just another reminder of the changing face of Las Vegas. Most recently, the city said goodbye to The Mirage resort, which shut its doors for the final time in July.