With the casino closing down July 4, all employment will end that day too.<\/p>\n
Affinity Gaming declined to make an official comment.<\/p>\n
The castle-shaped Whiskey Pete\u2019s opened in 1977, followed by Primm Valley in 1990 and Buffalo Bill\u2019s in 1994. Whiskey Pete\u2019s was the first casino to close<\/a>, in December 2024. Buffalo Bill\u2019s Resort ended 24\/7 operations on July 6<\/a>, only opening when the casino\u2019s concert venue, the Star of the Desert Arena, hosted special events.<\/p>\n David G. Schwartz, a gaming historian and professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said Primm\u2019s casinos were \u201cbuilt for an entirely different world.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSouthern California is a huge market for Las Vegas and, in particular, it was once very attractive for those in the Inland Empire,\u201d Schwartz said. \u201cIt was a way to trim 45 minutes off the drive \u2014 it was a 2-hour drive. It\u2019s different math.\u201d<\/p>\n Lights glow on the Buffalo Bill\u2019s Resort and Casino sign on July 6 in Primm, Nev. <\/p>\n (Bridget Bennett \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n Primm was once one of Nevada\u2019s more popular gambling resorts, a less expensive, slightly more kitschy alternative to Las Vegas that benefited from being closer to Southern California.<\/p>\n Primm Valley, Whiskey Pete\u2019s and Buffalo Bill\u2019s all hosted at one time the famed Bonnie and Clyde V-8 Ford riddled with more than 100 bullets<\/a> in 1934.<\/p>\n Whiskey Pete\u2019s offered a quick and affordable 24-hour IHOP, in comparison to Vegas\u2019 pricier buffets, and Californians and Nevadans visited Primm Valley\u2019s 100-store outlet mall, supported by shoppers who were brought by bus to the mall<\/a> for free.<\/p>\n The three resorts enjoyed expansion and growth throughout the 2010s by utilizing low prices<\/a>, gimmicks<\/a> and attractions to lure guests<\/a>.<\/p>\n Buffalo Bill\u2019s was the biggest of the trio, boasting a buffalo-shaped pool and 592 rooms at its opening (the Bellagio has nearly 4,000 rooms<\/a>) and eventually expanding to 1,242 rooms<\/a>.<\/p>\n Buffalo Bill\u2019s and its sister resorts closed in March 2020 when the pandemic hit, reopening between December 2022 and 2023<\/a>. But they struggled to attract customers.<\/p>\n Although the COVID-19 pandemic hurt all Nevada casinos, that was only part of the reason for Primm\u2019s decline. Schwartz said tribal casinos in Southern California saw their prospects soar as Primm\u2019s hotels teeter-tottered.<\/p>\n California voters passed Proposition 1A in 2000, which allowed tribal casinos to operate slot machines and erased limits on card games<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cMany of those people Primm was drawing from began to stay in Southern California, where the drives are just much shorter and the amenities much closer,\u201d Schwartz said. \u201cYou see the same issue playing out at Laughlin along the Arizona border and Reno and Tahoe in Northern California.\u201d<\/p>\n Shortly after Proposition 1A\u2019s passage, San Manuel was one of several tribal casinos in San Bernardino and Riverside counties that declared an arms race with Nevada<\/a>.<\/p>\n Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio, run by the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, opened in December 2004<\/a>. The tribe was the fourth between 2002 and 2004 to open or expand its operations, including Agua Caliente in Palm Springs, Morongo in Cabazon and the Pechanga Band of Luise\u00f1o Mission Indians in Temecula.<\/p>\n Most of these casinos have continued to build and expand their operations as revenue has continued to flow.<\/p>\n The Southern California tribal resorts are classified by the National Indian Gaming Commission, a gaming regulatory body, to be in the Sacramento region, which includes all resorts in California and Northern Nevada.<\/p>\n In 2014, the combined casinos contributed $7.9 billion<\/a> in gross gaming revenue.<\/p>\n Ten years later, 87 tribal operations throughout two states combined for $12.1 billion<\/a>, marking a modest 1.4% increase from 2023.<\/p>\n Yaamava\u2019 Resort & Casino, run by the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, sits in Highland, about 200 miles from Primm but less than half that distance from downtown L.A.<\/p>\n Yaamava\u2019 completed a $760-million expansion in 2021, which added a 17-floor tower, three bars and about 1,700 new slots.<\/p>\n The 7,400 slot machines at Yaamava\u2019 make the casino<\/a> the West Coast\u2019s largest, with 4,000 more slots than its Vegas peers. By square footage<\/a> of gaming space, Yaamava is No. 4 in the nation and still the biggest on the West Coast.<\/p>\n \u201cThe decline has been part of a larger trend,\u201d Schwartz said of Primm. \u201cPeople are choosing options that most appeal to them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Once upon a time, Primm, Nev., had three bustling casino resorts, shiny gas stations, a roller coaster and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[127725,129417,7,9,8,1501,3482,6843,129421,127722,129419,116519,31012,1009,129420,129416,39578,129418],"class_list":["post-307893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-buffalo-bill","tag-busy-resort","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-casino","tag-nevada","tag-operation","tag-owner-affinity-gaming","tag-primm","tag-primm-valley","tag-schwartz","tag-slot-machine","tag-southern-california","tag-southern-californians","tag-tribal-casino","tag-vegas","tag-whiskey-pete"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Primm,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1778070072_728_.jpeg\")
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