Cheap rooms, cheap eats
The owner of Circus Circus Las Vegas has indicated that he may soon sell the north Strip casino. Speaking with Forbes, 89-year-old Phil Ruffin said that he has been approached by potential buyers.
“Let’s just say there is interest,” he said. “It’s worth $5 billion.”
Circus Circus has seen better days. It is still a family-friendly option on the Las Vegas Strip, with its indoor theme park, lower room rates, and live circus performers, but that end of the Strip is not exactly the best.
Still, Ruffin told Forbes that business is good. “We sell $2 beer, $2 hot dogs, $2 popcorn. People love it. A guy can eat and drink for six bucks,” he boasted. And hey, in an era where it’s much harder to find the cheap eats that Las Vegas casinos used to be known for, that’s not nothing.
Land play
Ruffin told Forbes, though, that his long-term goal with Circus Circus was not to own a budget casino. It was to sit on the land.
“Why do you think I bought Circus Circus? For the 102 acres,” he said. “That’s the land play. Remember what I did at the Frontier, how the value of the land went crazy—here it’s going crazier.”
Yes, let’s remember what he did at the Frontier. He bought it for $165 million in 1998 and then turned around and sold it for $1.2 billion in 2007. The site has changed hands multiple times since then and is currently owned by Wynn Resorts. Wynn planned to build a third hotel tower on the site and still has an outside shot to do so, but the land still remains vacant.
Ruffin used the proceeds from the Frontier sale to buy Treasure Island and partner with Donald Trump, who just took office for a second term as President of the United States on Monday, on the Trump International Hotel.
Similarly, Ruffin said he would use the money he makes from the sale of Circus Circus to buy more properties, even at an age when most people would be long retired. He wants to buy something else in Las Vegas, but told Forbes that he has other targets elsewhere, if need be.
Over half a century of history
Circus Circus opened on October 18, 1968, owned by Jay Sarno and Stanley Mallin. It’s a rather odd name for a casino – after all, why the word repetition? As it turns out, it was a bit of a happy accident. Sarno said the original theme was to be a Roman circus, but he changed his mind and made it a traditional American circus.
“…instead of a Roman circus,” he said, “it’s a circus circus.” And there you had it.
In 1974, William Bennett and William Pennington took over operations, leasing Circus Circus from the two owners.
Fast forward to 1999, when Circus Circus Enterprises was renamed to Mandalay Resorts Group. Six years later, MGM Mirage (now MGM Resorts International) acquired Mandalay Resorts Group. Ruffin bought Circus Circus from MGM in 2019.
Image credit: David Stanley via Flickr.com
