Boyd Buys Land Under Still-Shuttered Vegas Casino

Posted on: February 13, 2025, 01:21h. 

Last updated on: February 13, 2025, 01:33h.

Corey Levitan Read More
Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Entertainment, Expert Insight, Las Vegas, Restaurants, Las Vegas Myths.
  • Boyd purchased land under its Eastside Cannery for $45 million in a sale that closed last week
  • It had been paying millions of dollars a year in a land lease for the casino hotel
  • There are no apparent plans to reopen the property

Boyd Gaming has acquired the land on which its Eastside Cannery sits, though it still has no plans to reopen the casino hotel since being forced to close it during the pandemic.

The Eastside Cannery has been shuttered since the pandemic. (Image: Google Street View)

According to property records obtained by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Boyd purchased approximately 30 acres for $45 million from Cannery Casino Resorts, to whom Boyd had been paying millions in rent every year.

In December 2016, Boyd paid Cannery Casino Resorts, co-founded by Bill Wortman and Bill Paulos, $230 million for the operating rights to the Eastside Cannery and the Cannery Casino and Hotel in North Las Vegas. However, Cannery Casino Resorts retained ownership of the land.

When then-Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) allowed Nevada’s casinos to reopen following the COVID-19 shutdown in June 2020, Boyd reopened the Cannery but passed on the offer for Eastside Cannery.

Cannery Opener

The Eastside Cannery opened in June 2008 on Las Vegas’ Boulder Strip, a less desirable tourism corridor patronized almost entirely by locals.

The casino hotel includes 65K square feet of gaming space occupied by over 2K slots, 29 table games, a poker room, keno, and a race and sports book. It also has an 18-story hotel tower with 307 rooms, 20K square feet of meeting and ballroom space, a private club on the 16th floor, three restaurants, and a lounge.

Last year, Boyd wrote in a letter to Clark County officials that market conditions made it unwise to reopen the Eastside Cannery considering the “plenty of excess capacity” at Boyd’s neighboring Sam’s Town casino hotel and the hundreds of employees it would need to rehire for the task.