Startling Tropicana Hotel And Casino Review

Tropicana Hotel and Casino History

The Tropicana Hotel and Casino is operated by Penn National Gaming and is a franchise of Hilton’s DoubleTree hotel chain. It has 1,467 rooms, a 50,000 gaming floor and 72,000 square feet of convention and exhibit space. Overhead pedestrian bridges connect the Tropicana to the MGM Grand to the north and the Excalibur to the west.

In 1955, Ben Jaffe, aimed to build a hotel with a Cuban ambiance with different cultural room themes. The property opened after many cost overruns and late schedule runs, the property was finally built in April 1957. Jaffe sold his interest in 1959 in the property to J. Kell Housell, owner of the Las Vegas Club who gained a majority interest in the Tropicana property.

Housell sold his interest in the Tropicana property in 1968 to Trans Texas Airways. A Minnesota financier later bought the Tropicana in 1972. Edward and Fred Doumani took over management in 1974 after investing $1 million into the property. Mitzi Stauffer Briggs, heir to the Stauffer Chemical fortune, bought a majority interest in the Tropicana in 1975. Briggs began construction of the 22-floor Tiffany Tower in 1977.

In 1979 an FBI investigation into the property showed mobster illegal practices in the property. These and similar actions resulted in the property being sold again in December 1979 to the Ramada Inn chain.

The Island Tower was built in 1986 with 21 stories.

Ramada relinquished it’s gaming properties and the Tropicana in 1989 as Aztar Corporation. The old Tropicana country club was sold to the MGM Grand which was located where the MGM Grand is now.

In January 2007, Columbia Sussex bought Aztar and planned to start a $2 billion Tropicana renovation. After the 2008 financial crisis the project led the Columbia Sussex to file bankruptcy in 2008. The creditors, the Canadian private equity firm Onex Corporation, took over the property.

November 9, 2010, a second entrance was opened up with additional parking. The Tropicana opened a new sports book on February 2011. The Tropicana hotel and casino became affiliated with DoubleTree by Hilton in 2012. Penn National Gaming purchased the Tropicana in August 2015 for $360 million. The celebrity chef Robert Irvine opened a restaurant called Robert Irvine’s Public House in the location where the sports book used to be in 2017.