From tourism slump to Tony Hsieh’s will, here are Eli Segall’s top business stories of 2025
Las Vegas had plenty of business news in 2025, from slumping tourism to casino real estate deals and the late Tony Hsieh’s allegedly forged will.
Here are five of the biggest business stories of the year.
Tourism slowdown
Southern Nevada relies heavily on visitors traveling here to spend big eating, drinking, gambling, partying and going to shows and conventions to fuel the local economy.
But amid a series of financial headwinds — and as President Donald Trump’s trade wars sparked widespread economic anxiety — fewer people took Vegas vacations this past year.
Around 32.3 million people visited Las Vegas this year through October, down 7.6 percent, or a drop of more than 2.6 million people, from the same 10-month stretch last year, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.
There were some signs lately that America’s casino capital could be heading in a better direction, but local executives were by no means ready to celebrate.
Southern Nevada business leaders’ confidence fell this quarter to the lowest level since the Great Recession, according to UNLV’s Center for Business and Economic Research.
Tony Hsieh’s will
Tony Hsieh, the former CEO of online shoe seller Zappos and face of downtown Las Vegas’ economic revival, died in 2020 at age 46 from injuries suffered in a Connecticut house fire.
Hsieh’s father, Richard Hsieh, has been managing his son’s estate, and the dad’s legal team stated multiple times in court filings that the younger Hsieh died without a will.
However, Hsieh’s purported last will and testament was filed in the tech mogul’s probate case in April — more than four years after his death. And since then, the surprising turn of events only became more bizarre.
The will surfaced under still-unclear circumstances, and throughout the year, there were no clear answers on who key people tied to the will even are.
On Dec. 15, lawyers for Hsieh’s estate filed court papers claiming the will is a forgery.
Tilman Fertitta’s parking lot
Houston billionaire Tilman Fertitta bought 6 acres on the Las Vegas Strip in 2022 for $270 million and secured approvals for a towering hotel-casino.
But after he became the U.S. ambassador to Italy, the property was turned into a parking lot this year.
The site, at the southeast corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Harmon Avenue, became home to a new surface lot that charged a minimum of $14.99 for up to three hours of parking, as seen this summer.
Steven Scheinthal, executive vice president and general counsel for Fertitta Entertainment, said in July that Fertitta owned 13 million shares in Wynn Resorts and viewed a competing high-end casino on Las Vegas Boulevard as a “conflict of interest.”
As a result, Fertitta had “no plans to continue with the project so long as he maintains his Wynn ownership,” Scheinthal said.
Derek Stevens land purchase
Casino boss Derek Stevens acquired another piece of Las Vegas history, buying the land under downtown’s Golden Gate.
His $19 million purchase closed in October, property records show.
Stevens has long owned and operated the historic hotel-casino at the corner of Fremont and Main streets. As he explained it, he bought the land from descendants of John F. Miller, who in 1906 built the Hotel Nevada, which still stands after a history of name changes, expansions and other new features and has long been known as the Golden Gate.
The family sold the plot to Stevens through an entity incorporated in 1908 as the Hotel Nevada Mining Company.
The entity is now called the Sal Sagev Hotel Co. Inc., as the hotel’s name was changed in 1931 to Las Vegas spelled backwards.
Probate law changes
Gov. Joe Lombardo signed a bill in June that changed Nevada probate law, after the Las Vegas Review-Journal found that outsiders cashed in on dead people’s homes for years but often didn’t make a dime for heirs.
The governor approved Senate Bill 404, which added steps needed to take over a dead person’s estate and limited who can obtain court authority to sell homes through a faster process in probate court.
A Review-Journal investigation published last year found that a group of private administrators, real estate agents, lawyers and house flippers had reaped paydays selling dead people’s homes across Southern Nevada for years, through probate cases that routinely started without family participation.
Under Nevada law, virtually anyone could manage a probate case — even if they had no connection to the deceased — and sell the dead person’s home with limited court oversight, the newspaper found.
The Senate Judiciary Committee introduced SB 404 in March.
Sen. Melanie Scheible, D-Las Vegas, chair of the committee, said she really wasn’t aware of the issues in probate court until she read the Review-Journal’s coverage.
Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342.
