Bellagio Casino Las Vegas
History of the Bellagio Casino
The Bellagio’s history began in 1993 when Steve Wynn, the owner of the famous Dunes Casino decided to demolish it and to build a spectacular complex that would be even more impressive than his largest casino at the time, the Mirage. Wynn wanted something spectacular and decided to base the design on the famous Italian holiday resort of Bellagio. The cost was an unbelievable 1.6 billion dollars and the construction of the enormous 36 floor, 3015 room complex took 5 years. When it opened on the 15th of October 1998, it was the most expensive hotel- casino ever. On the opening night the Bellagio made a profit of 88 million dollars and on the same night Steve Wynn raised funds from the VIPs for the Fighting Blindness Foundation ( he suffers from retina pigmentosa himself) by charging $1000 per person and $3500 per couple entry to the gaming tables and for a night in one of the hotel’s sumptuous suites. In 2000, Steve Wynn’s Mirage Resorts group, the owner of the Bellagio up to that point, merged with Kirk Kerkorian’s MGM Grand Inc group. The millionaire, Kirk Kerkorian owns the majority share in MGM Mirage, the company formed by this merger and so he became the new owner of the Bellagio. In 2005, he added an extension, the Bellagio Spa Tower with its 953 rooms over 33 floors bringing the complex’s total to 3933 rooms and 512 suites.
The Bellagio’s attractions
In addition to its 3933 rooms and 512 suites, the Bellagio also has:
-The Fountains at the Bellagio : the hotel’s marvellous musical fountains show.
– 20 restaurants including 5 gourmet restaurants
-The Conservatory: a splendid interior garden with a 15 metre high glass roof where the décor changes with the seasons.
The Bellagio Gallery : the complex’s art gallery.
Via Bellagio : a splendid shopping centre made up of 11 luxury designer shops.
-Ô : the Cirque du Soleil theatre.
-5 swimming pools including a large central pool with 2 jacuzzis
-2 wedding chapels
-An immense casino
Details of the Bellagio Casino
The 10 776 square metre Bellagio Casino offers a large number of slot machines and gaming tables as well as a sports betting room. More details below:
-More than 2400 slot machines of every type ( classic roller slots, video poker machines and progressive jackpot machines) with bets from 1 cent to $1000.
-Almost 200 gaming tables for craps, blackjack, three card poker , classic baccarat and Pai Gow Poker.
– A 40 table, non-smoking poker room where the world’s main poker tournaments such as the WPT Five Diamond and the WPT World Championship take place. Major players are welcomed into a private room “Bobby’s Room”, where the minimum bet at both tables is $20 000. Poker tournaments are also organised there every day.
– A 200 seat sports betting and horse racing room covering more than 520 square metres. It has 150 flat screens to broadcast major sporting events and horse racing from more than 25 race courses.
The Bellagio casino has featured in films. It was the main location in the Steven Soderbergh film : Ocean Eleven with George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia and Julia Roberts. The Bellagio is the main location for the film in which Danny Ocean (George Clooney) is free after spending two years in prison and aims to rob the Bellagio, Mirage and MGM Grand casinos at the same time to gain 150 million dollars.