Inside Gaming: This downtown Las Vegas casino is hosting an open bar every night

Golden Gate’s ownership is taking a gamble on the future of the 119-year-old downtown Las Vegas property by removing live dealer table games from its casino floor.

The casino’s owners are also betting that offering up free alcohol every night will help soften the blow of losing its dancing dealers.

Beginning Sept. 19, all drinks at Golden Gate’s center bar will be complimentary between 6 and 7 p.m., Derek Stevens, CEO and co-owner of the casino, said Sunday.

The new daily promotion is part of a marketing campaign called “The Night Starts Here.”

“We’re going to try to provide a high energy, fun, exciting experience, not once a week, but every day of the week, seven days a week, 365 days a year at 6 p.m. in Vegas,” Stevens said. “No matter what you’re doing … we want the night to start here.”

Golden Gate removed its live dealer table games from the floor between Sunday night and early Monday morning. The games will be replaced by electronic table games and slot machines.

Stevens said Golden Gate dealers and pit employees were offered positions at his other two downtown casinos, Circa and The D.

“There’s no one losing a job here in Vegas,” he said Sunday night.

Major casino operator slips from Wall Street index

One of the Strip’s largest casino operators is coming off the S&P 500 later this month.

Caesars Entertainment, Inc. will be replaced by Robinhood Markets Inc. on the stock market index at the start of trading on Sept. 22, according to S&P Global.

The Reno-based gaming and hospitality conglomerate, which operates eight casino resorts on Las Vegas Boulevard, has a reported market cap of between $5 and $5.5 billion, which is below the index’s minimum thresehold of $22.7 billion. Caesars Entertainment is among three publicly traded companies coming off the S&P 500, along with Enphase Energy Inc. and MarketAxcess Holdings Inc.

The move is part of a quarterly rebalancing of the S&P 500. The casino company will join the S&P SmallCap 600.

Caesars Entertainment did not respond to a request for comment.

The company’s stock is down nearly 20 percent since the beginning of the year. At Monday’s closing price of $26.33 per share, it is trading 42 percent below its 52-week high of $45.55 in October 2024. A $1,000 investment worth of Caesars Entertainment’s shares in 2020 would now be worth less than $520.