I have some doubt about the writeup of the history of this place (which seems to mostly come from Wikipedia). Everything I can find says the same thing...that it opened in early 1955 and closed in late 1955. Then nothing.

But in the Historical Photos section, there's a shot of the front of the place with cars in the parking lot that are from the mid 70s.

The place couldn't have been abandoned for 50 years without deterioration or destruction. I realize that the Nevada desert is a good environment for abandoned buildings, but I would think that squatters or druggies or hippies would've accidentally burned the place to the ground by the mid 60s.

Not to mention, in one of the pictures, there's a notice that anyone living there must be out by a date in 2007, which was after the first major fire.

Can someone shed some light on this?

I can. It was quickly closed after they stopped blocking black people from gambling/staying on the strip. In the 70's? (I believe) and 1-2 other times it opened, but only for brief moments.

May 29th 2003 is when it started going down hill, they blamed the fires on kids/homeless people (las vegas residents know those are two tired excuses used to torch buildings, blame it on kids or homeless versus the property owner arsonist) Not seen much anymore is that the fires actually started high in the back of the building, a classic form of arson as it slows down firefighters...

So kids with bottle rockets or a homeless guy cooking a meal is very unlikely. The old hotel attached to it was rented out to anyone who wanted a room in the area, until the fires started happening. the first fire mysteriously happened after it was placed on a list of endangered historical places, and then the final one after a buyer was not found for the property...

It's not difficult to connect the dots and see that something is mysteriously absent here, ie the truth. Barely before it was out also the last time it caught fire, the fire department was involved in having it quickly torn down. Huge coverup indeed. Last time I checked, you keep the evidence intact, not tear it down with hot spots still active. It was Las Vegas Fire And Rescue who responded to the call. We have LVFR and CCFD (clark county fire department) here.

It's a common joke around town that CCFD has paper shredders installed on their trucks to destroy evidence, and now LVFR probably does also...

Sad end to a place that could have made a very interesting museum, but profits before history as always. Joke is on them though, karma will come home to roost. It's in a gang infested area, no one with a right mind would build anything there until it is massively changed from the ground up

It opened / closed several times over the years. A big fire shut down the main casino part in the late 70s/80's if I recall right.

They were still using the hotel for quite some time as weeklys if I recall right then that got shut down in 2007 when conditions got bad.