“We have a roadmap, and we’re keeping that quiet for now,” he said. But over time, Rampmaier, who is also the chief information officer, said the team will incorporate more of that history into the game. Right now, the social casino game is a collection of slot machines and it doesn’t convey much history about the casino, except through some images. The Stardust Social Casino game is one of the first results of that effort which consumers will see. That involved a lot of technology investment, Rampmaier said. But you can’t cash out the chips, so it’s not considered gambling in most states.īoyd Gaming decided a couple of years ago that it wanted to go into both online sports betting and social casino games. The app on Android and iOS is a free-to-play social casino game, where you can purchase virtual chips with money. It operates 29 in 10 states, including the California Hotel in Las Vegas. Like some of the other social casino game operators, Boyd Gaming still has its gambling properties. To stand a chance, a new entrant like Boyd Gaming needs to have a hook to draw people in. Rivals in social casino games include Playtika, Aristocrat, SciPlay, DoubleU Games, Zynga, Bole Games, and Huuuge Games. But the Stardust story is interesting, and that might be a draw in the crowded social casino game market, which generated $6.2 billion in revenues in the past 12 months, according to market analyst Eilers & Krejcik. If you’re thinking that the Stardust name might appeal to an older audience, that’s not a bad guess. Image Credit: (Photo/Las Vegas News Bureau, Darrin Bush) Amid the global financial crisis in 2007, the hotel was detonated with explosives, with the tower imploding before an enthusiastic crowd. The company added a 32-story tower in 1991, but the hotel’s presence faded with the construction of mega-casinos in the 1990s and 2000s. Boyd Gaming took over the Stardust as the operator and became the owner in 1985. General manager Frank Rosenthal (played by actor Robert Deniro in the Casino film) lured the magicians with a gift of a Rolls Royce, a car that his wife (played by Sharon Stone) had turned down.Īfter years of illegally skimming profits from the casino, the mob was finally ousted from the Stardust in 1983, when the Nevada Gaming Control Board seized control. The Stardust was home to the Le Lido de Paris burlesque show, and it was the first Las Vegas stage of the legendary magicians Siegfried & Roy. While the Stardust evokes a lot of memories and its early mob connections inspired the 1995 Martin Scorsese film Casino, the hotel was demolished with great fanfare in 2007. Image Credit: Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, Inc.

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