PRIMM — The barricades are up at Whiskey Pete’s, and same goes for Buffalo Bill’s, albeit with colorful banners fastened to its roadblocks that declare: “The Party is at Primm Valley.”
With three hotel-casino properties in this remote spot outside Las Vegas, Primm Valley Resort is the only one still open. But the party, or what’s left of it, is about to end.
Casino operator Affinity Gaming told state officials in a letter dated May 5 that it will permanently close its operations at Whiskey Pete’s, Buffalo Bill’s, Primm Valley Resort, the Primm Center gas station, and the Flying J trucker fueling stop in Primm.
An apartment complex in Primm that was built for the local workforce is also closing, and the nearby Lotto store just over the border in California is closing as well.
Primm, an unincorporated area along Interstate 15, roughly 40 miles south of the Las Vegas Strip, has struggled for years and become increasingly quiet. And now that its main operator is bowing out, only time will tell whether Primm gets redeveloped, revived, or keeps fading away.
All told, Primm has been a “significant cash drain and management distraction of Affinity for many years,” said Melissa Krantz, spokeswoman for the company, in a statement to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
‘Nobody’s going there’
Primm used to be a lucrative roadside destination on the Nevada-California border. Its trio of hotel-casinos once sold for $400 million combined, and the sprawling outlet mall in Primm was reportedly among the top 10 outlet centers nationally by sales.
These days, the gas stations in Primm still appear to get plenty of business, given the heavy volume of drivers who pass by on the highway.
But the outlet mall, which is not operated by Affinity, is almost entirely deserted, with just one store left as of this month following years of declining fortunes.
Two of the hotels also shut their doors over the past few years, with the closures previously labeled temporary, and visitors now face barricades along the perimeters of their parking lots.
Las Vegas land broker Rick Hildreth said he doesn’t like seeing anything shut down or people lose their jobs. But he figured the whole concept of a place like Primm is outdated.
“Obviously it must be, because nobody’s going there,” he said.
‘No potential buyers’
In the recent letter to the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation, Affinity Chief People Officer Chantelle Mark did not provide a reason for the mass shutdown.
But she said that 344 employees will lose their jobs and that the businesses will close on July 4.
Las Vegas-based Affinity “embarked on an exhaustive analysis, an extensive evaluation of alternatives, and a robust sale process that yielded no potential buyers,” said Krantz, the spokeswoman.
The company “determined that the closure of Primm is a prudent business decision,” she added.
Primm has faced ever-expanding competition up the highway in America’s casino capital, which offers a seemingly endless lineup of shows, nightclubs, shops, restaurants and other places to spend time and money outside the casino floors.
At the same time, California now has tribal casino-resorts throughout the state, offering more — and often more convenient — options for customers who may have otherwise thought about going to a place like Primm.
Cory Clemetson, president of Primm’s landowner group and grandson of the outpost’s namesake, the late Ernie Primm, said in a statement that the family was saddened to learn of the closures.
He noted that Affinity’s ownership had been leasing and operating the properties for nearly 15 years on land owned by the family.
“We hoped that these operators could have done more to make these properties successful and to continue operating the hotel-casino and related properties that they now intend to close,” Clemetson said, adding the family was “working tirelessly to find potential solutions” for the properties.
‘The math doesn’t work’
Some real estate sources told the Review-Journal that a logical alternative for Primm is to develop an industrial park.
Primm sits along the main highway that connects Las Vegas to Southern California and could be a drop-off point for truckers hauling goods from Los Angeles-area ports.
But those warehouses and distribution centers would still need to be staffed with workers. And given the dearth of housing nearby, employees would probably come from the Las Vegas Valley and spend a big chunk of their paychecks just on gas to get to and from work, said Logic Commercial Real Estate partner Amy Ogden, an industrial-property specialist.
“The math doesn’t work,” she said.
Other potential options include solar panel fields or even residential development, said Hildreth, of Land Advisors Organization.
He said that house hunters will go out of their way for affordable prices but noted the area would still need day-to-day services.
Developer Joe DeSimone, who owns casinos and other properties in Southern Nevada, thinks that Primm could still have one or two casinos.
But a “very large investment” would be needed to make them a destination again, he said.
As he described it, the properties in Primm feel worn down, tired, and “almost abandoned.”
‘Major destination’
In 1999, Las Vegas casino giant MGM Mirage made a big bet on Primm.
The company, now called MGM Resorts International, acquired Primadonna Resorts for about $244 million, plus the assumption of debt. The deal gave MGM the three casinos in Primm and full ownership of New York-New York on the Strip.
As MGM later said in a securities filing, Primm was a “major destination location” and offered the millions of drivers who passed through each year the first opportunity to gamble upon entering Nevada and the “last opportunity before leaving.”
Meanwhile, the Desert Oasis apartment complex was built in Primm in 2004 and has 436 units, according to Clark County property records.
It features a small market, and the apartment project was described in county records as employee housing for the neighboring resorts.
In fall 2006, MGM reached a deal to sell Whiskey Pete’s, Buffalo Bill’s and Primm Valley Resort to casino operator Herbst Gaming for $400 million.
At the time, MGM said the properties collectively featured 2,644 rooms and 136,000 square feet of casino space.
Herbst Gaming President Ed Herbst said in a news release that he and his brothers were “extremely pleased about the acquisition of these three great assets.”
‘A fresh start’
The sale closed in spring 2007. But the next year, the U.S. economy collapsed into the worst recession in decades.
The economic pain was especially severe in Southern Nevada, where the once-roaring, easy money-fueled real estate market was all but wiped out. Job losses soared, property values plunged, masses of people lost their homes to foreclosure, and the Las Vegas Valley was littered with abandoned construction projects from the Strip to the suburbs.
Herbst Gaming filed for bankruptcy protection in 2009 as the economy spiraled downward, court records show.
In 2011, the Review-Journal reported that members of the founding Herbst family no longer had any involvement in their casino business following a court-administered reorganization.
The new leadership also adopted a new name: Affinity Gaming.
“We believe it is in the interest of the employees and management to make a fresh start,” Affinity’s then-CEO David Ross said at the time.
Over the past few years, Affinity scaled back its operations in Primm.
In fall 2024, it disclosed plans to temporarily close the hotel-casino at Whiskey Pete’s.
The company said in a letter to Clark County officials that traffic at the state line was “heavily weighted” towards weekend activity and was “insufficient to support three full-time casino properties.”
Then, in summer 2025, it disclosed plans to temporarily close Buffalo Bill’s as well, but to still periodically open the casino for concerts and special events, county records show.
‘Never say never’
As seen on a recent Thursday afternoon, people were gambling inside Primm Valley Resort, and several visitors were at the Bonnie & Clyde exhibit. The free attraction boasts the “authentic bullet-riddled” Ford V-8 that Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were in when police killed the infamous criminals in 1934.
But overall, the casino was far from busy. Most of the slot machines were unoccupied, and at a tavern in the resort, the TVs were on, but there were no customers, and there wasn’t a bartender in sight.
Casino historian David Schwartz, former director of UNLV’s Center for Gaming Research, said it’s hard to determine whether Primm is still a viable casino market.
There is plenty of land and infrastructure, but if someone wanted to run a casino, they would need to do something different, he said.
Primm isn’t the first outlying casino market to lose business, though as Schwartz noted, an operator can always try to reinvent the place.
So, could something eventually happen in Primm?
As Schwartz put it: “I would never say never.”
Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342.
