He bailed. He’s down to 2% now.

Lol…I do remember those giant jewels…so tacky..

I’ve heard the Arabian Nights theme was done on the cheap in the first place, and the couple of times I saw it didn’t contradict that impression. It wasn’t likely to draw lots of middle-Eastern high rollers who could just as easily go to many other places. Years later, Lucky Dragon made a similar miscalculation with a different target group.
But I did get to see Ann-Margret in “Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” at the theater for the performing arts, renamed several times since.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zappos_Theater

The Aladdin opened in 1966, when The Bellagio was the golf course of The Dunes Hotel, I played that golf course as a kid, when I tell people there used to be a championship golf course on Las Vegas Blvd where The Bellagio sits they laugh. You are 100% correct about 9/11 being a big reason to change the “theme”, and the fact that the casino being not on street level. City Center and Aria did not learn that lesson, they put that lousy freaky empty big dollar designer mall Crystals on the street level, and tucked Aria away…

– first the casino above street level,totally wrong concept somewhere fixed with escalators,but walkers would find themselves going more often inside Miracle Mile rather than the casino. Some friends of mine Vegas first timers even called the place the “Miracle Mile hotel”.

– The London Club, the casino within the casino. That project costed London Club PLC a 500M dollars investement and was a total disaster,LC Ceo even ended up to resign his position due to a stress related heart attack.

– then, the ” in your face” arabic theme,something that came along in phase of market saturation right after the Bellagio opened and generally speaking was not well accepted by americans.

– and then, 9/11 hit, read above the arabic theme.

There where a couple of good things tho, like the Spice Market Buffet,hands down back then the best buffet in town along the Bellagio’s one. And the mega Sharper Image store inside the Miracle Mile Mall. Ok nothing great about that store but a cute lady used to work there and I’ve tried to ask her out many times without success…lol.

It was the state of Indiana that required that Eldorado sell 3 properties once the merger was completed and they became Caesars. They probably would have sold Tropicana Evansville anyway but they’re selling Horseshoe Hammond because of the casinos coming to Chicago eventually and Caesars Southern because the Indiana Horse Racing Commission required that Harrah’s Hoosier Park and Indiana Grand can’t be split up.