Las Vegas THEN & NOW

Then: The Thunderbird Casino on the Strip had a quarter-horse racetrack on it’s grounds in the 1950s. It had two things going against it: July & August. The owners sold the track and after another renaming as the Silverbird, the casino became the El Rancho.
Now: The site is home to the luxury Turnberry Place and a London-themed casino.

Then: During the mid-1950s, you could catch Old Blue Eyes in a lounge act for the price of a 75-cent drink and still have a quarter left for the tip.
Now: The cost to see a headliner starts at about $50 and goes up.

Then: You could buy the Stardust in 1954 for around $15 million.
Now: Steve Wynn’s Bellagio opened in 1998. Cost: $1.8 billion. Don’t even ask about Wynn Las Vegas. You could buy several small countries for the cost of construction.

Then: If you worked in a Las Vegas casino in the 1970s and a co-worker asked for a ride home, you automatically said yes because very few places were more than a 10-minute car ride.
Now: If a co-worker asks you for a lift today, you better get out a map and gauge the distance. It could take up to an hour or more of your time.

Then: A little more than 7 years ago, poker was all but dead in the U.S. The few poker rooms that still spread games were frequented mostly by older men who had been playing since dinosaurs roamed the earth.
Now: It’s hard to keep track of the new poker rooms springing up on the Strip and elsewhere due mostly to the phenomenal success of TV poker.