As local attention keeps being fixated on the rebranded Sands J Resort on Arlington Ave., we often wonder about our downtown Virginia street section, and what its still operational casinos and recently faltered ones mean to the present and future of Reno?
When there’s talk of revitalizing our downtown, or working on new bike lanes, the casinos are often the elephants in the room, sometimes overlooked, but when it comes down to it central to any decision and still all imposing.
After several requests for comments via our multiple social media channels, the responses we received on our query about casinos and our downtown future were illuminating, with anecdotes which could fill a book.
There were many proponents of casinos, who pointed to helpful tax dollars and to their key role in the city’s history, culture and identity, and the many jobs provided, but also many frustrated contributors who complained of the look and feel of our downtown on most days — the passed out and the end of their rope gamblers laid out in front of corner stores with kitschy offerings, pawn shops with the most random of items, and boarded up shops painted over with murals in yet another display of local “art washing.”
“Tbh Reno should've followed Vegas in the 90s and demolished all these casinos and built better new and bigger tourists attractions. That's where they really dropped the ball. Downtown is just a sad depressing place to be now. Seems like 2011ish was the last great year Reno had,” Z.eros wrote. Some would argue with the last glory year, but most commenters agreed that section of Reno is past its prime. “Might as well get rid of the few remaining, at this point, it's a dump downtown,” Tally Walz wrote on our Facebook.
It’s a particular type of tourist, eater, concert goer, gala attendee and local gambler who still enters casino doors, while many other residents enjoy Virginia street only when there’s an outdoor event, with cars blocked out, and not having to enter the fluorescent caverns to be entertained.
With the population surge, and the success of each of these events, it seems there could be one for almost every weekend on the calendar.
On our Instagram Roman de Salvo disagreed with the aforementioned Z.eros that bigger would have been better in changing our downtown. He lamented the lack of a pedestrian feel on non event days.
“Time was, downtown was remarkably vital and vibrant, with lots of shopping in addition to the many small casinos that competed at street level for the abundant pedestrian traffic,” he wrote. “The hermetically sealed parking-hotel-restaurant-casino biospheres are an invasive species that has out-competed the smaller native species of a historically street oriented urban ecology. The mega-resorts have given us a blight that ultimately isn't good even for themselves. (Take Harrah's, for instance.)”
In some of the most pointed comments we received he explained why Virginia Street can be so desultory, by design. “They're a pernicious business that breeds payday lenders, pawnshops, addiction and blight,” he wrote of our downtown casinos.
“In the five years I have lived in Reno, I have only been inside a casino once, for a concert. While I appreciate Circus Circus letting UNR peeps park for free, it’s a really unpleasant place to be a pedestrian. Casinos seem like a relic from the past and slot machines make me sad,” wrote Andy Zuker, a student at UNR, hinting to a generational divide, even though many students themselves struggle with gambling addiction, or gamble as one of their choices of entertainment.
Some commenters contributed memories of how they used to try their luck at the local casinos but then stopped or at least eased up. “I gambled a paycheck when I was in my 20s,” Valerie Tilson wrote. “Since then I then had a friend who would give me 20 hold my purse/wallet and put a small clock in front. When after an hour the alarm went off and had to leave whether I was up or down if I was up it was then split upon exit. 3 years later I never gambled again nor gone inside of casino.”
Many expressed relief they weren’t themselves gambling addicts, but had difficult stories about friends and family to share. “Born and raised here...seen MANY people drop "Juniors" college fund or try and double the mortgage payment before heading out empty handed,” Jared Tyner wrote, with ALL CAPS to emphasize certain parts of his statement. “I gamble MAYBE once a year to just mess around and drink for free.” “Have too many family members who sound cuckoo for thinking they have some sort of ritual for hitting the button "just right" to win etc…” Tab Isamzin wrote.
“I grew up here,” Jessica Castro wrote. “My father had a gambling addiction. I struggled with gambling for a long time in my early 20s. Casinos do not do enough for our community such as donating to local non profits or mutual aid groups.”
“Casino’s main purpose for existing is to rid people of their money, while offering a bit of entertainment between the entry and exit,” Lo Hoyman wrote in a matter of fact way.
Laura Furumoto wrote about her first husband who she said was a gambling addict. His life story she shared reads like a local Greek tragedy, with harsh words for the casino industry.
“His dad used to take him to Circus Circus to win animals at games when he was little,” she wrote. “Bet on sports next. Then worked at sports books as a side job. Then worked legit and had his own company for decades making six figures and took his high profile customers to casinos for dinners, shows, gambling. Hosted international convention parties by renting out tops of casinos… Then started gambling more heavily. He fell in love with the poker dealer at the Peppermill. Divorce. Bought a house in Somersett for her. Lost her after being engaged six months and she asked for a TRO. Gambled company away. Became a "Professional Gambler" going to play in World Series of Poker etc. Largest win recorded online for him was about $36k. Playing online poker more heavily. Lost his house. COVID killed travel to Vegas. Got a job at a big box warehouse store for minimum wage. Evicted from nice apartment in NW Reno. Now lives in low income/assisted pay apartments in a bad part of town. Not safe for our daughter with special needs. Gambling is evil. It ruins lives. Every single time. The house always wins - the price the gambler pays is their sanity, their money, their future, their souls… Casinos can absolutely go away. Only value [they] have is the entertainment but the Pioneer Center and other non-profits can provide that proficiently,” she concluded.
“They are well designed by very intelligent people to extract as much money from vulnerable people as possible,” Xu Yun Xuan Tong wrote on Facebook, who had a more data based approach to our query. “Only about 3-5% end up ahead over a year, and less and less the longer they go. 10% of gamblers throw away so much of their money that they account for 90% of a casino's profits. But telling addicts these things never sways them more than the psychological manipulation the casinos enact. At least it pays a lot of Nevada's taxes.”
We got testimonies from others who like to gamble but keep their gambling under control.
“I think it’s all about self control but people always think they can win and then lose,” Bailey Kay wrote. “I like going to the casino, not any downtown except maybe Cal Neva, and that’s to have a drink with friends and try a few slots.”
Others like “janeyahm” on Instagram saw change away from casinos as a negative.
“Reno needs to embrace its history. The casinos were amazing, the western/ cowboy culture, souvenir stores that are actually cool, Reno tries so hard to be cool and in that attempt all the cool things about Reno seem to be getting lost.”
Echoing this sentiment, Debi Kessler wrote: “I wish we still had all of our old casinos in downtown. At least it had character then!” Daniel Carroll added: “We should have the old school type casinos back. Or just more in general. Our downtown scene is sad and needs more action.”
“Casinos have supported and sustained this state. If you don’t like it, you can go somewhere where there are no casinos,” Joe Hoax wrote on our Facebook. “Leave the casinos, strip bars, and tattoo shops alone. Don’t change this unique city. I gamble maybe $100 a year at the most as entertainment.”
“If government can operate a lottery, people should have the right to run a casino,” wrote Louis Santiago Dong III. “If you don't like something you don't ban it, you just don't partake. Don't like gay marriage, don't partake but don't ban it. If you're smart you'd put that $20 in video poker at the bar and with $10 beers at the ROW you break even after two beers.”
“If you get rid of gambling and casinos then you erase Reno all together,” Jennifer Burroughs wrote. “It’s the individual’s decision. Government is not here to tell adults what to do with their money.”
The definition of cool and what we need for the community seems to be in dispute though in terms of who you ask.
“Midtown and the river front are thriving,” a commenter who goes by Glynffinite wrote. “Reno would be so much cooler if most or all of the downtown casino zone was turned into mixed use. The nicest casinos are all away from downtown anyway these days.”
“While I actually am nostalgic for the blingy vibrancy of the downtown clubs as they were in their heyday, before tribal casinos in other states, I don't see much of a future [for] most of them,” de Salvo concluded in his own comments. “You can pretty much smell which of them are going to fail next.”
“It seems like absolutely anyone near or younger than my age has zero interest in going to a casino where literally the only thing you can do is sit and lose money on slots or cards while getting second hand smoke forced down your throat,” a UNR student wrote.
Like the Jacobs expansion, or the destruction of motels, where to put bike lanes or the median in Midtown, the future value of our Virginia street casinos seems to represent one of those dividing lines in local social media discussions. As long as there are casino goers though, it’s probably a safe bet some of these will remain for the time being and continue to dominate the center strip of our fast growing Biggest Little City.