Las Vegas Officials Bet On A’s To Bring World Series To Sin City With Tropicana Implosion Complete

The Tropicana crashed to the ground in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, paving the way for Las Vegas’ first Major League Baseball team to begin construction on a climate-controlled $1.5 billion dollar stadium.

Known as a haven for mob activity, The Trop was built in 1957 for $15 million, then setting a record for the most expensive resort in the history of the city. On Wednesday, a Las Vegas relic that hosted the showgirls’ revue Folies Bergere and performers such as Louis Armstrong, Al Hirt, and Benny Goodman, perished in approximately 44 seconds. The resort took its final bow in a spectacular display that included a series of fireworks and a glitzy drone presentation.

Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo signed a stadium finance bill into law in June 2023, weeks after the Oakland Athletics switched the location to the grounds of the former casino. The A’s plan to play the next three seasons at Sutter Health Park in Sacramento, the home of the San Francisco Giants’ Triple-A affiliate. By 2028, the franchise intends to move into a new stadium practically within a stone’s throw of the MGM Grand.

"I'm going to take a deep breath, then we're going to implode the Trop and I will breathe all of that in," said A's owner John Fisher at a ceremony before the demolition.

Drop The Trop

Over a two-decade period through 2016, more than a dozen major casinos were imploded throughout Sin City. The most memorable may have been the first, the implosion of The Dunes Hotel in 1993. The destruction of The Dunes made way for the construction of The Bellagio, a casino then billed as the most expensive in the world.

Teri Thorndike, a former Follies Bergere dancer, attended the demolition of The Dunes more than three decades ago.

“I was so close to The Dunes when it got imploded that we all got lifted up by a foot,” she recalled. Thorndike returned to the site of The Trop on Wednesday with her twin sister Sheri Mariault, another former dancer.

The company behind Wednesday’s implosion, Controlled Demolition, Inc. (CDI), has conducted more than 30 casino implosions in city history. CDI oversaw the implosion of two 22-story towers, which totaled 917,400 square feet. Hundreds of spectators attended the event dubbed "Drop the Trop."

One building, the structural steel-framed Paradise Tower contained 220 cut-point locations loaded with 490 pounds of explosives. The other, the reinforced concrete-framed Club Tower, had approximately 1,130 boreholes filled with 1,700 pounds of explosives, according to the company.

Folding like an accordion, the towers crashed into the ground just after 2:30 a.m. Within seconds the implosion created a dark cloud of smoke that blanketed the Statue of Liberty outside the New York-New York hotel. A young woman remarked, "this looks like a Godzilla movie," as bikers rode by the soot-covered streets. Another observer joked, "I should make a snow angel."

Betting On The A’s To Win The World Series By 2040

As of Wednesday, the A’s had future odds of 20-1 to win next year’s World Series, odds that place the team in the middle of the pack among MLB’s 30 teams. But the A’s haven’t won an AL pennant since 1990, the last of a three-year streak from the "Bash Brothers," in reaching the World Series. The Athletics last captured the Fall Classic a year earlier, the ninth time the storied franchise won the World Series. The teams featured Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire and Rickey Henderson, who attended the implosion, according to Fisher.

Bally's, which purchased The Trop from Penn National Gaming in 2022, reached an agreement with the Athletics to demolish the casino. Asked if he would place a hypothetical wager on the A's to win the World Series by 2040, Bally's Chairman Soo Kim told Action Network that he actually felt good about the proposition.

Others at the ceremony echoed the sentiments. Steve Hill, president of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA), described the bet as one with high potential. The Golden Knights reached the Stanley Cup finals in their inaugural season, one where they opened the year with odds of 300/1 to hoist the Cup. With the arrival of the A's and potentially an NBA expansion team, Hill views Las Vegas as the center of sports and entertainment nationwide. 

Clark County Commissioner Jim Gibson recalled the halcyon years of UNLV basketball under Jerry Tarkanian. Tarkanian led UNLV to the 1990 national title with a team that is arguably viewed as one of the most dominant in college basketball since the NCAA added a 3-point line.

Gibson has high expectations for the A's when they arrive in Las Vegas.

"I spent a lot of time with John Fisher and I’m absolutely convinced they will make us proud," Gibson told Action Network. "From the days of when Jerry Tarkanian was winning basketball games, we have embraced a winner. We’re not fickle, this community will come together around this team."