LOST VEGAS: Drive-Thru Casino Windows

Posted on: January 22, 2025, 05:02h. 

Last updated on: January 22, 2025, 05:03h.

Corey Levitan Read More

Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Entertainment, Expert Insight, Las Vegas, Restaurants, Las Vegas Myths.

Even before sports betting apps, it was not necessary to enter a sports book to place a legal wager on your favorite team. You could simply pull up to drive-in windows operated by two Las Vegas casinos.

The Imperial Palace introduced the world’s first drive-thru gambling window in April 1991. The Imperial Drive-Up Sports Book was located behind the hotel on Koval Lane. “Place Sports Bets From Your Car!” a neon sign screamed.

“A lot of people plan on watching the games at home, not in the book,” Bobby Choquette, the property’s sports book supervisor, told the Las Vegas Sun in 1999. “We make it real convenient for them to get a bet down and get home.”

Nearly every sports wager possible inside the casino was offered from the luxury of one’s car — from straight bets, to propositions and futures. The only bet off limits to drive-thru customers was horseracing. That required them to enter the casino — as did cashing in winning tickets.

The latest lines were posted outside, and transactions were handled — in the days before touch screens– by a live attendant.

A second window was opened for busy days during football and baseball seasons. Baseball wasn’t really as popular, but it coincides with Las Vegas’ hot summer months, May through October, when no one loves getting out of their air-conditioned cars if they can avoid it.

Technically, you didn’t even need a car. A separate walk-up window accepted wagers from customers arriving on foot, bicycle or (sometimes) skateboard.

Doubling Down

A similar concept, “Sports on the Run,” opened at the Fiesta in September 1995, a year after the North Las Vegas casino was opened by the Maloof family.

The only difference was that it handled transactions old-school bank style. Sports book attendants used two-way speakers to communicate, and money and betting slips were placed in plastic cannisters that were whooshed back and forth with the casino via pneumatic tubes.

“We get an extra rush because of those (day baseball) games with people going to work or taking the kids to school,” Mark Nelson, the property’s director of race & sports, told the Sun in the same 1999 article.

Sometimes, the parents didn’t bother dropping their kids off. They were not only allowed in the car as their drivers placed bets, the questionable practice was encouraged! (If Fiesta employees spotted a little one via the casino’s security cameras, they were instructed to send a piece of candy along with the bettors’ tickets and change.)

Book Ends

The fad ended in Las Vegas (and therefore the world) with the closure of each property — the Imperial Palace in December 2012 and the Fiesta Rancho (as it was known after Station Casinos purchased it in 2001) in March 2020.

Obviously, no other casinos stepped up to fill the void after Nevada legalized mobile sports betting in 2010, which rendered both driving to a casino and waiting behind a line of cars unnecessary.

However, even before then, the concept never caught on. A 1999 Travel Weekly article quoted a Las Vegas News Bureau spokesperson citing “space limitations” in casinos as the reason.

However, the bureau was an arm of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, a frequently truth-challenged marketing agency for the casino industry.

A more likely reason is that nearly all casinos prefer customers to enter their premises. Here, they can be tempted to place additional bets, and make purchases, that they hadn’t planned on.

“Lost Vegas” is an occasional Casino.org series spotlighting Las Vegas’ forgotten history. Click here to read other entries in the series. Think you know a good Vegas story lost to history? Email corey@casino.org.