VEGAS MYTHS BUSTED: Disney is Buying Circus Circus

Posted on: February 10, 2025, 07:55h. 

Last updated on: February 13, 2025, 11:09h.

Corey Levitan Read More
Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Entertainment, Expert Insight, Las Vegas, Restaurants, Las Vegas Myths.

It feels like we just shut down this idiocy five months ago because we did. Only it wasn’t Circus Circus that the Walt Disney Company was supposedly purchasing just because the Las Vegas casino resort markets itself to children, it was Excalibur just because it resembles Cinderella’s castle.

AI imagines Circus Circus as operated by Disney. For the record, we did not prompt it to render Mickey Mouse with Donald Duck’s beak and Minnie Mouse’s eyebrows. (Image: GROK2)

The Lyin’ Kings

First of all, we apologize for mocking your intelligence. We already know you’re the type of person who trusts journalism like ours, not who believes whatever gets announced by clickbait Facebook pages like this…

We don’t know about you, but we like to get all our Las Vegas news from Facebook posts that can’t even spell their subjects (“Circus Cicrus”) correctly. This post received nearly 6K likes and 1.5K shares, by the way. (Image: Facebook)

In fact, tell you what, instead of bothering to finish this, we invite you to read our criminally under-visited column from last Monday, which exposed Las Vegas’ Atomic Liquors for lying about its age.

Unfortunately, as idiotic as the Disney/Circus Circus rumor is, it’s rampant. People are believing and sharing it by the thousands.

“I wondered where it was going to be built,” noted one commenter beneath the bogus Facebook post above.

Wishing Upon a Star

Circus-Circus murders
The 102-acre Circus Circus was opened in 1968 by casino entrepreneur Jay Sarno. It was his first project after Caesars Palace. (Image: MGM Resorts International)

Last month, Circus Circus owner Phil Ruffin admitted to Forbes that he is trying to sell the iconic property, which he purchased for $825 million from MGM Resorts in December 2019.

Circus Circus — which sits on 102 acres, including the Las Vegas Festival Grounds next door — is a cash cow. According to Vital Vegas, its annual earnings are $90 million before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, aka EBITA (a fancy way of saying casino cash flow).

That means it has no debt, while most of its competitors work at a loss if you figure in costs (including interest on debt).

But Disney doesn’t want to own Circus Circus, Excalibur, or any other casino.

“I don’t see the Walt Disney Company … getting involved in the business of gambling, in effect, by facilitating gambling in any way,” Disney CEO Bob Iger told CNBC in February 2019.

Yes, that was before its ESPN subsidiary launched ESPN BET in 2023. But the Mouse House keeps its brands fastidiously separate. And its Disney brand:

  1. Bans casinos from its popular cruise ships, defying the industry trend
  2. Refused to renew its licensing agreements for “Star Wars” slot machines following its acquisition of Lucasfilm in 2012, and did the same with Marvel-themed slots after acquiring that company in 2009
  3. Lobbied against the expansion of gambling anywhere near Walt Disney World
  4. Played a significant role in quashing 21st Century Fox’s 2019 plans to build a theme park into the Resorts World Genting casino resort in Malaysia.

This plea for sanity comes from one of social media’s rare good guys. (X.com/@LasVegasLocally)

More Importantly…

In that Forbes interview, Ruffin set a price that eliminates any likelihood of the purchaser continuing to operate Circus Circus, which is the only reason this rumor started to begin with.

It’s worth $5 billion,” the casino billionaire said. “It’s the best piece of land on the West Coast. It’s got the highway, it’s got the Sahara. It’s got 2,000 feet on the Strip, and it’s the last Strip property.”

Any entity that ponies up $50 million an acre for Circus Circus (or anywhere near that figure) will have mountains of debt to reverse. And, as analysts have noted, that reduces its options to only one gamble that makes sense — demolishing Circus Circus and replacing it with the kind of property that maximizes revenue per square foot.

And that property is yet another luxury casino resort — the kind that the Walt Disney Company wouldn’t build until the last star in Neverland twinkles out.

Even MORE Importantly…

As tweeted by Vital Vegas on January 26, none of this is happening in the foreseeable future anyway.

“No one is building a luxury resort on the Circus Circus site,” Las Vegas’ most informed journalist wrote, because “Fontainebleau and Resorts World are floundering” and “Resorts World is being sold.”

In case you haven’t heard, Resorts World didn’t have a particularly awesome 2024.

Look for “Vegas Myths Busted” every Monday on Casino.org.  Visit VegasMythsBusted.com to read previously busted Vegas myths. Got a suggestion for a Vegas myth that needs busting? Email corey@casino.org.