Binion's Gambling Hall and Hotel
Binion's Gambling Hall & Hotel, formerly Binion's Horseshoe, is a casino on Fremont Street along the Fremont Street Experience pedestrian mall in Downtown Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. It is owned by TLC Casino Enterprises. The casino is named for its founder, Benny Binion, whose family ran it from its founding in 1951 until 2004. The hotel, which had 366 rooms, closed in 2009. TLC reopened 81 of the rooms as a boutique hotel called Hotel Apache in July 2019.
Binion's Horseshoe (1951–2004)
Benny Binion bought the Eldorado Club and Hotel Apache in 1951, re-opening them as Binion's Horseshoe (also called the Horseshoe Casino). The casino's interior had a frontier flavor, like an old-style riverboat, with low ceilings and velvet wallpaper. It was the first casino in downtown Las Vegas (also called Glitter Gulch) to replace sawdust-covered floors with carpeting, and was the first to offer comps to all gamblers, not just those who bet big money. Binion also instituted high table limits. When Binion first opened the Horseshoe, he set the craps table limit at $500—ten times higher than any other casino in Las Vegas at the time. Ultimately, Binion's raised the table limit to $10,000 and even eliminated table limits completely at times, which was an immediate hit.
Post-Binion family (2004–present)
Days after the purchase by Harrah's was finalized, the company sold the physical property and the Binion's brand on March 11, 2004, to MTR Gaming Group. Harrah's retained the Horseshoe and World Series of Poker brands.[citation needed] Binion's reopened in April 2004, with MTR operating the hotel and Harrah's operating the casino, while MTR completed the process of acquiring a gaming license. Harrah's operated the casino under a temporary contract until March 11, 2005, when MTR took over and renamed the property Binion's Gambling Hall and Hotel.[citation needed] MTR remodeled both the casino and hotel after the purchase. A notable feature of the remodeling was to replace the casino's worn carpet with surplus carpeting that Benny Binion had stored since initially carpeting the casino.[citation needed]
Hotel Apache (2009–present)
On purchasing Binion's, TLC had announced a plan to expand the hotel with a new tower, but on December 14, 2009, they closed the hotel and coffee shop due to the late-2000s recession. TLC continues to operate the hotel at the Four Queens casino across the street, which has almost twice as many rooms. Previously, Binion's advertised the hotel as closed for renovations. However, due to the high cost of asbestos removal in the hotel, renovation plans were shelved. In February 2019, TLC announced plans to reopen 81 of the rooms as a new boutique hotel called Hotel Apache. The hotel was designed with "vintage-style furnishings reminiscent of the original Hotel Apache that opened in 1932". The hotel opened on July 29, 2019.
The 1971 James Bond movie Diamonds Are Forever has a chase scene showing the Horseshoe several times. The music video for U2's 1987 song, "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", was filmed on Fremont Street and features several views of Binion's. Binion's makes a brief appearance in the 1997 Chevy Chase comedy, Vegas Vacation In 2005, the outside of the hotel (along with its famous former "Horseshoe" logo) is featured prominently in the music video for Snoop Dogg's 2005 single, "Signs" featuring Justin Timberlake. The hotel was seen in the 2007 film Lucky You. Its history was also mentioned in "Chum Goes AWOL", a second season episode of the History Channel reality television series Pawn Stars, which aired in 2010. A reality series, Casino Confidential which airs on DTour, gives a behind-the-scenes look at the Binion casino. In the 2013 film Last Vegas, the protagonists attempt to check in to Binion’s in an attempt to recreate a bachelor party from decades earlier, only to learn the hotel is undergoing renovations.
