About Bally’s Las Vegas
Opened originally as the first MGM Grand in 1973 on the site of the former Bonanza Hotel. It was the largest hotel in the world at the time. On November 21, 1980, one of the worst building fires in U.S. history broke out in the casino. At the time of the buildings construction, areas of hotel/casinos in Nevada that were in operation 24 hours a day were not required to have smoke detectors installed. The assumption was that an employee would spot the fire and be able to take care of it quickly. By the end of the 1970s the area in which the fire broke out was no longer operating 24 hours a day. The fire was started by faulty wiring inside the wall used to power a refrigeration unit in the casino’s deli. A total of 87 people died as a result of the fire mostly from smoke inhalation (3 of the 87 died after the fire as a reuslt of injuries sustained during it) As a result of the tragedy, fire safety laws in Las Vegas were changed to some of the most strict in the nation.
After reconstruction, the hotel was sold to Bally’s in 1985 and renamed. While the MGM Grand name was transfered to a new building on the south end of “the Strip.”
Ghost Stories
The stairwells and hallways of the hotel are said to be haunted by the ghosts of those that died in the MGM Grand fire. Apparitions have been seen wandering the halls of the higher floors of the north tower and in the stairwells and elevators.
Our Review
He Says:
I have never stayed at Bally’s, but on one of my trips “with the guys” back in the late 90s I won a jackpot playing on one of the slot machines using my friend’s money. He was trying to win a Harley and gave me some of his coins to play in the machine next to him. I remarked that it was boring playing with someone else’s money, so he offered to let me keep any payout that required someone to come out to pay it off. Sure enough, I hit a jackpot for a few hundred and someone had to come out to pay me.
She Says:
Long ago, I saw Penn & Teller at this place. I have never spent the night nor eaten here, but it is your typical Vegas casino hotel. Though it does have a very VERY long entrance. It looks rather 1980’s, so it would be nice to see it get a face-lift….
so that he could lose to himself. He purchesed land in Las Vegas and hired George Vernon Russell to design him a hotel. The high cost of finding building materials during World War II quickly left Wilkerson in deep financial trouble. Wilkerson was soon “pursuaded” to take on partners in his venture by Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel the famed mobster of Murder, Inc. Bugsy had no experience in designing a hotel so costs continued to mount. The hotel finally opened the day after Christmas in 1946.
protective measures he had built into his Las Vegas apartment at the Flamingo. His assassins smartly took him out while he was visiting Las Angeles in a far less fortress-like atmosphere.
experience. Our tour guide, Jac Hayden, called it “the jungle.” Did notice an odd wildlife sign that labeled a water turtle with the scientific name aix sponsa, which is actually the scientific name for a wood duck. I wonder how long that has been there. (there is a sign for wood duck that has the proper name.) Why do we know the scientific name for wood duck you ask? Geocaching.
world. Its replacement, although smaller than the original, is still the world’s largest.
it has become a tradition for me to eat at Quark’s Bar every time I visit the city going back to when me and my friends (in our single days) would visit sin city once a year. The food is decent, the atmosphere is neat (as long as you stay in the bar area which used to be the smoking section), and the drinks are unusual. I had a warp core breach on my first visit with my friends and although I did not enjoy its taste, the shear size and the fact that it come bubbling and smoking because of the dry ice is a nice twist.
the Star Trek Experience two times now. The majority of the Hilton a normal casino, but in this specific area they have done a really good job to make it feel like you are in the Star Trek world.
appeared in the Brooke Shield’s sitcom Suddenly Susan was found dead in room 20 of the Oasis Motel on March 22 1999, the victim of an apparant suicide. He had tied a bed sheet around his neck and hung himself from a ceiling beam.
the spot on Flamingo Road where Tupac Shakur was gunned down by unknown assailants in a drive by shooting. There is a street pole at this location that is used as a memorial to the rap star. Tupac has on a few occasions been seen walking in the area late at night.
taken there by Hell’s Angels or another biker gang where they performed satanic rituals on her before killing her. Her body was found in the house. It was very dark when we drove by on the tour and difficult to photograph, so we returned to the location the following day. It is in the midst of being remodeled. We did not seen the address marked on the property, but according to the tour guide the owners are constantly changing the address to avoid the “666” demarcation the house originally had. While no one was living at the house at the time, if you visit the location remember to be respectful of the owners.
The home was known to be haunted before the current business occupied the home and performed an exorcism and had a medium tell them to paint a red fox on both sides of their sign to appease him. He is still there, however, playing pranks on the people that work in the office.
to make her more difficult to detect, she was known as the “Grey Ghost.” She ferried troops from the U.S. to England in preparation for D-Day. During this time she set the record for the most people on an ocean voyage at one time with 16,683 people.
