Bally's Las Vegas

Bally's Las Vegas
Access area from the strip before construction begins.
Location	Las Vegas
opening	5th December 1973
room	2,814
Casino area	6,500 m²
Shows	Jubilee!
Restaurants	BLT Steak , Tequila Bar & Grill , Sea , Nosh , Sbarro
Attractions	Grand Bazaar Shops
Previous names	MGM Grand (until 1985)
owner	Caesars Entertainment
Website	Bally's Las Vegas

The Bally's as seen from Caesars Palace

The Bally's Las Vegas is a hotel - and casino complex on the Las Vegas Strip . The owner is Caesars Entertainment .

The hotel opened on December 5, 1973. The owner was the entrepreneur Kirk Kerkorian . The construction cost US $ 106 million and at that time it was the largest hotel in the world with 2,084 rooms (in today's North Tower ). It was one of the first mega-resorts in the city, set new standards at the time, and today, together with the Mirage, which opened in 1989, is considered the most important pioneer for the ongoing development of Las Vegas.

On November 21, 1980, a fire broke out in a restaurant in the casino area of ​​the hotel, killing 85 people. The fire spread rapidly throughout the hotel and is the largest disaster in the state of Nevada to date, based on the number of fatalities, and the third largest disaster in a US hotel. The destroyed areas were rebuilt within eight months. Another hotel tower that was under construction at the time of the disaster remained undamaged and was handed over to its intended use in 1981. This is the part of the facility closest to the strip. ( South Tower ). At the time of the fire, German comedian Otto Waalkes was on the 26th floor of the building. Among other things, in a ZDF interview on the occasion of his 70th birthday, he said that the fire brigade was able to save him literally at the last minute.

In 1989 the hotel was bought by Bally Entertainment Corporation for $ 594 million . It was only from then on that it was called Bally’s . Previously it was called MGM Grand , which was transferred to the new MGM Grand Hotel when it was completed. In 1995 it was sold to Hilton Worldwide , with the Casino Resorts division of Hilton being spun off in 2003 as Caesars Entertainment . Bally's is now part of the same group as the Caesars Palace and Flamingo hotels, for example .

The rooms in the T-shaped main building ( North Tower ) were renovated in 2004. The hotel's landmark, the Garden Walkway , was closed in 2014. This consisted of two moving walks , which led through a garden landscape in a spiral-shaped construction set in scene with neon lights. In its place, the so-called Grand Bazaar Shops , a restaurant and shopping area on 4,100 m² , were built by the beginning of 2015 .

One stop on the Las Vegas Monorail serves the hotel directly.

Web links

Commons : Bally's Las Vegas  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

1. ↑ How Otto survived a fire disaster in 1980 Focus online, May 15, 2018
2. ^ Grand Bazaar Shops in Las Vegas on April 23, 2015

Coordinates: 36 ° 6 ′ 51 ″  N , 115 ° 10 ′ 20 ″  W.