Nevada
Golden Nugget Lake Tahoe begins a top-to-bottom renovation – The Nevada Independent
The general manager of the Golden Nugget Lake Tahoe told gaming regulators last week that “every square foot of the property” would see some type of renovation during its latest redevelopment.
During a Gaming Control Board hearing in Carson City, general manager Jason Sides said the initial redevelopment phase had started on the 539-room hotel and 25,000-square-foot casino. One of the resort’s two towers has been taken offline so the improvements can be made, and he expects the first floor of renovated rooms to be available by October, just in time for the busiest months of the year.
“We have big plans for the property with a significant capital investment,” Sides told the regulators, but he did not provide a cost estimate for the project.
Following its purchase last year by Houston billionaire Tilman Fertitta’s privately held Fertitta Entertainment, the property is now operating under its fifth name since its opening in the 1960s.
Sides said a Salt Grass Steakhouse — one of several dozen restaurant brands owned by Fertitta — will open by the fall. He said Mastro’s Steak House, a high-end Fertitta restaurant brand, will also be added to the property.
On the Golden Nugget website, images show a renovated lobby area and room renderings.
“You’ll see subsequent phases of other construction [throughout the year],” Sides said. “We’ve seen a nice surge of business and a lot of bodies [in the Tahoe market] in the past few weeks. So that’s good to see.”
A representative for Fetitta’s company declined to comment beyond what was said at the hearing. The renovations are expected to be completed by 2025.
The resort has been known as Hard Rock Lake Tahoe since 2015. The Nugget is the last of the four Tahoe casinos visitors see along Highway 50 as they enter Stateline from California. The other three Stateline resorts are Bally’s Lake Tahoe and the Caesars Entertainment-owned Harvey’s and Harrah’s.
Control board senior economic analyst Michael Lawton said the South Tahoe market saw its highest gaming revenue total in 2000 when it produced $352.6 million in gaming revenue.
Lawton said South Tahoe experienced a steep gaming revenue decline — and is almost 31 percent below its peak totals — during the last two decades due to the recession and competition from Northern California tribal casinos. In the last three years, the Sacramento area has seen the opening of three new tribal-owned casinos.
But there is hope the market will rebound.
According to the control board, South Lake Tahoe’s gaming revenue through May is 5.6 percent ahead of the first five months of 2023. Last year, the Tahoe market produced more than $243.8 million in gaming revenue, which was down 7.5 percent from 2022, but is more than 8 percent ahead of 2019, the last full year of gaming revenue for Nevada before the pandemic.
“We saw this as a great opportunity,” Fertitta told state gaming regulators a year ago. “We will take this property and totally transform it. And, as we always do, add the Golden Nugget name on it. We always expect it to be one of the top properties in the market.”
Investments beyond the casino floors
Tahoe has seen recent non-gaming investments.
The Golden Nugget is across from the $80 million Tahoe Blue Event Center. The 132,000-square-foot facility at the corner of U.S. Highway 50 and Lake Parkway will host conferences and concerts and will serve as the 36-game home hockey arena for the expansion ECHL’s Tahoe Knight Monsters.
On the California side of Highway 50, Orlando-based Margaritaville Resorts transformed the 399-room, non-gaming Lake Tahoe Resort Hotel into Margaritaville Resort Lake Tahoe. The renovation gave the location a Key West-style theme at the base of the Heavenly Mountain Ski Resort and adjacent to the casinos just across the state line.
The property is Fertitta’s third Golden Nugget in Nevada, along with resorts in downtown and Laughlin. Fertitta’s company also operates Golden Nugget hotel-casinos in Atlantic City, Biloxi, Mississippi, Lake Charles, Louisiana, and Cripple Creek, Colorado.
Fertitta’s company gained preliminary approval from the control board Wednesday to finance part of last year’s acquisition of the property. The Gaming Commission is expected to take up the matter on July 25.
“Basically, Tillman Fertitta is getting paid back for his initial investment in the project,” said control board member George Assad. “It’s a pretty simple transaction, but just a lot of legal jargon.”
Fertitta announced an all-cash bid for the Hard Rock Lake Tahoe in March 2023, buying the operation from Paragon Gaming. Five months later, the deal was approved by state gaming regulators and the property took on the Golden Nugget name. The property had hundreds of music memorabilia items that were returned to Hard Rock.
The property opened in the 1960s as the Sahara Tahoe. It has also been known as the High Sierra Resort and Lake Tahoe Horizon.
Fertitta Entertainment also has plans to build a 2,420-room, 43-story hotel-casino on 6 acres at Harmon Avenue and the Strip that it acquired in 2022 for $270 million. In May, the company said it was asking Clark County for permission to connect the planned resort to a pedestrian overpass bridge.
The company owns the NBA’s Houston Rockets and its Landry’s hospitality division includes a restaurant segment with roughly 520 outlets and entertainment attractions.
Fertitta, who is a cousin of Red Rock Resorts CEO Frank Fertitta III and Vice Chairman Lorenzo Fertitta, has also owned a 6.1 percent stake in Wynn Resorts since 2022 as a passive investment. He is the second-largest individual shareholder in the company behind Elaine Wynn.
The Las Vegas Raiders have orchestrated many groundbreaking moves this offseason, but none as important as the impact they made at a fundraising event.
Over the weekend, the Raiders hosted the Silver & Black Gala, raising $2.5 million for mental health in Nevada. Sunday marked the third time the organization had hosted the event, which has produced a tremendous turnout.
Several individuals spoke during the event, including Las Vegas Raiders owner Mark Davis and president Sandra Douglass Morgan, who each highlighted the importance of acknowledging mental health.
Davis’ Thoughts
- “We’re here to raise money for mental health, which is one of the most important things we can all deal with,” Davis said. “Every one of us is impacted by mental health and our families, friends, or anywhere else, we are all directly affected. That’s why it’s so critical to raise money for our community. We’re grateful for you all, and appreciate you being here.”
Morgan’s Thoughts
“Mental health remains one of the most urgent issues across Nevada,” Morgan said. “Through the Silver & Black Gala, the Raiders Foundation is helping expand access to trusted, community-based resources that meet people where they are. This year’s recipients reflect the depth and complexity of that work, supporting our community in schools, clubhouses, homes, shelters, and family systems statewide.”
The Raiders also honored former player Carl Nassib and NFL broadcaster Jay Glazer on Sunday night as the winners of the Commitment to Excellence award. Here is what each of them had to say.
Glazer’s Thoughts
- “First, this is incredible what the Raiders are doing,” Glazer said. “God blessed me with the ability to communicate, so I’m going to use that to try and help other people. When we’re willing to share our scars, we turn them into strength—into something that connects us as teammates with nothing to hide. That’s what builds a true team, a championship team. I’m proud to stand with you and be part of this team tonight.”
Nassib’s Thoughts
- “It is truly a privilege to be up here,” Nassib said. “We’re creating space for people to be vulnerable—and that work is truly lifesaving. It’s not about being perfect, it’s about showing up and reminding people they’re not alone.”
Overall Thoughts
This has been a tremendous event over the last few years, and the Raiders’ organization has done a great job of raising awareness for mental health. This will be an event that the team will continue to host in the future.
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Nevada
Nevada workers fear homelessness as housing, jobs vanish before July deadline | Fox News Video
The final casino resort in Primm, Nevada, will close this summer after years of declining tourism, ending gaming operations in the once-busy border town and putting hundreds of employees out of work.
Primm Valley Casino Resorts is shutting down its remaining hotel and casino operations in July as experts point to increased competition, changing travel habits and post-pandemic losses behind the decline.
RENO, Nev. (News 4 & Fox 11) — Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo (R) is in a strong position heading into the thick of his 2026 reelection bid — a huge war chest, almost universal name recognition and strong favorability numbers among the electorate.
Though Lombardo is likely focusing on the general election already, he faces 6 longshot candidates in the GOP primary seeking to upset him in June.
Nevada Governor GOP primary: 6 longshot candidates taking on incumbent Joe Lombardo
The challengers face a ‘Herculean’ task, said Mike Noble, CEO and founder of Noble Predictive Insights, an Arizona-based nonpartisan pollster focusing on the Southwest region.
“I see it as a Herculean task for anyone. If someone was coming in with like, I don’t know $10 million or something to spend, sure I can see that might be competitive, but I don’t see any of them coming anywhere near close to that. And so again, I just think I think it’s a non-factor at this point,” Noble said.
RELATED | Ballot Battleground: Nevada podcast: Early Noble poll shows dead heat in governor’s race
Despite the long odds, News 4-Fox 11 reached out to all candidates requesting an interview as part of our commitment to 2026 election coverage and our Know Your Candidates series. Three of the 7 running interviewed with us — Irina Hansen, Kameron Hawkins, Lombardo and Jose Zelaya did not respond to multiple emails requesting an interview.
We asked them similar questions about Gov. Lombardo’s leadership as governor, how they would pass a balanced budget and whether they support taxpayer subsidies for sports teams or major projects.
Click the candidate’s name to watch their full interview. Quotes below have been edited for space and clarity.
Donald J. Beaudry Jr. is an entrepreneur who founded BlkEdgeAi, a financial technology firm specializing in AI-driven trading systems and market strategy, according to his campaign website.
He told News 4-Fox 11 that Nevada has been drifting the last four years with ‘no captain, no vision.’ He believes his Wall Street-like trading market called NGEX (Nevada Global Exchange) would generate enough revenue to eliminate sales taxes, property taxes, business taxes and vehicle registration fees.
“I completely blueprinted it out and calculated that this model could generate enough revenue in this state that we could eliminate all the state taxes and fees that are currently in place and use that as the revenue source for the state and make everybody, every man, woman and child throughout Nevada, a shareholder in the dividends of that exchange … it would be a kind of Wall Street type of stock market, but far broader, more advanced, and exponentially more profitable.”
Matthew Rian Winterhawk is the founder of SmartSlaps foundation, a nonprofit that works to help schools and students with civic engagement and community responsibility.
If elected, he described going through a DOGE-like review of the state budget to determine which areas can be cut or kept depending on their ‘dollar to impact’ ratio.
“What I would like to do is go through every department, I’m talking top to bottom, from here from the primary to the beginning. We will cut every piece of administrative bloat across the system … I need more money for my teachers. Teachers never see it, students never see it, the impact never reaches the classroom. It’s 100% administrative bloat.”
The son of immigrants, Barak Zilberberg is now an entrepreneur and real estate investor based in Las Vegas. He ran for governor in 2022, earning 0.2% of the vote in the GOP primary. He told News 4-Fox 11 he’s also running for President in 2028.
He said he’s running for governor to improve the educational system, bring jobs to Nevada and open up federal land to build more affordable housing.
“We’ve got get high-speed railing systems in here where we can transit very easily, efficiently, and basically moving around between economies of both cities. Not only that, I’d like to bring Disneyland here and the Olympics, sponsor the Olympics here. I just want to make this a well-known place of entertainment, a hub.”
To help voters make informed decisions this election year, News 4-Fox 11 is publishing and broadcasting dozens of interviews with candidates who will appear on the June primary ballot.
In fairness to all candidates, they were asked a series of similar questions. We are posting the full interviews online so voters can watch their responses in their entirety.
Visit our Know Your Candidates 2026 page to view other race previews and meet other candidates.
Email reporter Ben Margiott at bjmargiott@sbgtv.com. Follow @BenMargiott on X and Ben Margiott KRNV on Facebook.
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