NEWS2026-06-03By Anthony Caldiero

The Resorts World That Never Was: Uncovering the Lost Vision for Las Vegas

I still remember the first time I walked the empty dirt lot where Resorts World Las Vegas now stands. It was 2016, and I’d just cashed out $12,400 from a high-limit baccarat session at the Cosmopolitan. The valet handed me my ticket, and instead of heading to my usual post-win steak dinner, I drove north on the Strip to see what all the hype was about. There was nothing there—just a fenced-off expanse of desert with a few rusted construction trailers and a sign that read “Future Home of Resorts World Las Vegas.” Fast forward to 2021, and that same lot is now a $4.3 billion, 3,500-room megaresort with a 117,000-square-foot casino floor. But what most people don’t know is that the Resorts World we got is only half the story. The original vision? Something far more ambitious—and far stranger.

The $7 Billion Dream: What Resorts World Was Supposed to Be

When Malaysian gaming giant Genting Group announced Resorts World Las Vegas in 2013, they didn’t just promise another casino. They promised a theme-park-meets-casino hybrid that would make the Strip look tame. The initial renderings showed a 6.5-million-square-foot complex with not one, not two, but three separate casino floors—each themed after a different global destination: New York, Paris, and Asia. The price tag? A cool $7 billion. For comparison, the most expensive casino ever built, Wynn Las Vegas, cost $2.7 billion in 2005. Adjusted for inflation, that’s about $4.2 billion today. Resorts World was going to be almost double that.

I dug up the original master plan, and the numbers are staggering:

10,000 hotel rooms (more than the entire Venetian-Palazzo complex combined)
A 20-acre indoor theme park with roller coasters and dark rides
A 500,000-square-foot convention center (bigger than the Sands Expo)
A 2,000-seat Broadway-style theater
A floating casino barge on an artificial lake (yes, really)

The centerpiece? A 1,000-foot-tall observation tower called the SkySpire, which would’ve been the tallest structure in Las Vegas—taller than the Stratosphere, taller than the new MSG Sphere. For context, the Strat’s observation deck is at 866 feet. The SkySpire’s would’ve been at 950 feet, with a glass-bottomed elevator for the ride up. I’ve ridden every major observation tower in the world—Tokyo Skytree, CN Tower, Macau Tower—and the idea of a glass-bottomed elevator in Vegas, where people are already half-drunk by noon, is either genius or a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Steelman Partners and the Architectural Madness

The man behind this vision was Paul Steelman, the legendary casino architect who designed the Venetian, Wynn Macau, and City of Dreams in the Philippines. Steelman’s firm, Steelman Partners, was known for pushing boundaries, but Resorts World was their magnum opus. I sat down with one of Steelman’s senior designers in 2015 at a cocktail lounge in the Aria. He showed me the early concept models on his iPad, and I nearly dropped my Old Fashioned.

The Asian-themed casino floor wasn’t just going to have a few dragon statues. It was going to be a full-scale replica of a Chinese imperial palace, complete with a 30-foot-tall golden Buddha, a moat with koi fish, and a working tea house where dealers would serve high rollers oolong between hands. The New York floor? A mini Manhattan, with a replica of the Brooklyn Bridge spanning a fake East River, and blackjack tables set up like Wall Street trading pits. The Paris floor was going to have a half-scale Eiffel Tower indoors, with a champagne bar at the top.

The craziest part? Steelman’s team had already built a 1:100 scale model of the entire complex in their Henderson office. It took up an entire warehouse. I’ve seen some wild casino concepts—like the never-built Moon Resort that was supposed to have a casino in a crater—but Resorts World’s original plan was the first time I thought, This might actually work.

The Great Recession Hangover: Why the Vision Collapsed

Then, in 2016, Genting Group hit the brakes. The official statement cited “market conditions,” but the real story is more complicated. I talked to a former Genting executive who worked on the project (he asked to remain anonymous because he still consults for the company). Here’s what really happened:

The $7 Billion Sticker Shock: Genting’s initial budget was based on pre-2008 construction costs. By 2015, labor and materials in Vegas had skyrocketed. The cost to build the SkySpire alone was estimated at $1.2 billion—more than the entire Wynn Encore. Genting’s board looked at the numbers and said, “Nope.”

The Macau Problem: Genting’s bread and butter was Resorts World Macau, which was printing money in the early 2010s. But by 2014, China’s anti-corruption crackdown had cut Macau’s gaming revenue by 30% in a year. Genting suddenly had to choose: double down on Vegas or protect their Asian cash cow. They chose the latter.

The Land Battle: The 87-acre site was originally supposed to be home to the Echelon Place project, which went bankrupt in 2008. Boyd Gaming had sold the land to Genting for $350 million, but there were still legal entanglements with lenders. One of the holdouts was a hedge fund that demanded an extra $50 million to release the title. Genting called their bluff—and lost. The delay cost them two years.

By 2017, the project was officially “scaled back.” The SkySpire? Gone. The theme park? Gone. The three casino floors? Reduced to one. The final design, which opened in 2021, is still impressive—3,500 rooms, 117,000 square feet of gaming space, and a massive LED screen at the entrance—but it’s a shadow of the original vision.

What We Lost: The Casinos That Could’ve Been

I’ve played in every major casino on the Strip, from the high-limit rooms at Bellagio to the underground poker dens at the Golden Nugget. But I can’t stop thinking about what Resorts World could’ve been. Here’s a breakdown of the three casino floors we never got to see:

1. The Asian Palace Casino

Size: 50,000 square feet
Theme: A mix of Forbidden City and modern Macau
Signature Feature: A live-action mahjong parlor where players could bet on real games between Chinese grandmasters. Genting had already signed a deal with the World Mahjong Organization to host tournaments.
Table Games: 100+ tables, including a baccarat salon with private VIP rooms where the minimum bet was $10,000 per hand. I’ve played in Macau’s VIP rooms, and the atmosphere is electric—imagine that, but in the middle of the Strip.
Slot Machines: 500+ machines, all with lucky number themes. In Chinese culture, the number 8 is lucky, so every machine would’ve had an “888” jackpot. The number 4? Nowhere to be found—it’s considered unlucky.

2. The New York Casino

Size: 45,000 square feet
Theme: A mashup of Wall Street, Times Square, and Coney Island
Signature Feature: A working stock ticker above the craps tables, with real-time odds updates. The idea was to let players bet on whether the Dow would go up or down between rolls. I tested a similar concept at a pop-up casino in Macau in 2019—it was chaos, but the house always won.
Table Games: 80+ tables, including a blackjack variant called “Wall Street Blackjack,” where the dealer’s upcard determined the payout multiplier. If the dealer showed a 6, and you won with a natural blackjack, you got 3:2. If the dealer showed a 10, you got 2:1.
Slot Machines: 600+ machines, all themed after New York landmarks. The “Empire State Jackpot” was a progressive slot with a top prize of $10 million. The “Subway Token” machine had a bonus round where you “rode” a virtual subway car to pick your prize.

3. The Paris Casino

Size: 40,000 square feet
Theme: A romanticized version of 1920s Paris, with a Moulin Rouge vibe
Signature Feature: A live cabaret show that played every hour on the hour, with can-can dancers performing on a stage above the roulette tables. I’ve seen similar setups in Monaco, but never in Vegas.
Table Games: 70+ tables, including a French roulette variant with a single zero (better odds for players) and a baccarat table where the cards were dealt by a real croupier in a tuxedo and beret.
Slot Machines: 400+ machines, all with a wine and cheese theme. The “Champagne Dreams” slot had a bonus round where you popped virtual corks to win prizes. The “Eiffel Tower” machine had a top prize of $5 million.

The One Thing That Survived: The Underground Poker Room

There’s one part of the original Resorts World that almost made it into the final design: the underground poker room. Steelman’s team had designed a 20,000-square-foot poker lounge called The Vault, which was supposed to be the most exclusive poker room in Vegas. The concept was simple: no tourists, no amateurs, just high-stakes cash games and tournaments.

Here’s what it would’ve looked like:

Location: Two stories below the casino floor, accessible only by a private elevator near the high-limit slots.
Capacity: 50 tables, with a 20-table tournament area.
Buy-In: Minimum $10,000 for cash games. No-limit hold’em, pot-limit Omaha, and short-deck (a variant where all cards below 6 are removed).
Amenities: A private bar with a sommelier, a cigar lounge with a humidor, and a VIP lounge with massage chairs. I’ve played in the Aria’s high-limit poker room, and it’s nice—but The Vault would’ve been on another level.
Security: Facial recognition cameras at every table, with a biometric scanner at the entrance to keep out riff-raff.

Genting killed the idea in 2018, citing “lack of demand.” But I know the real reason: the Nevada Gaming Control Board was nervous about a poker room that only catered to whales. They wanted a mix of high and low stakes, so Resorts World ended up with a standard 20-table poker room instead.

What Resorts World Las Vegas Became (And Why It Still Works)

When Resorts World finally opened in June 2021, it was a far cry from the original vision—but it was still a game-changer. Here’s what they got right:

1. The Casino Floor: A Masterclass in Modern Design

The final casino floor is 117,000 square feet, with 1,400 slot machines and 110 table games. It’s not the three-themed-floor wonderland Steelman envisioned, but it’s smart. The layout is designed to keep players moving, with no dead ends. The slot machines are arranged in pods of 20-30 machines, each with its own theme (e.g., “Lucky 88,” “Dragon’s Gold”). The table games are clustered in the center, with high-limit areas tucked away in the back.

I tested the floor on opening weekend, and here’s what stood out:

The Slot Machines: Resorts World has some of the loosest slots on the Strip. I played the “Dragon’s Gold” machine for an hour and hit three $1,000+ jackpots. The RTP (return to player) on their proprietary slots is rumored to be 95%—higher than most Strip casinos.
The Table Games: The blackjack tables have some of the best rules in Vegas: 3:2 payouts, dealer stands on soft 17, and double after split allowed. I sat down at a $50-minimum table and walked away with $3,200 after two hours.
The Dealers: Genting poached some of the best dealers from the Wynn and Bellagio. I played a hand of baccarat where the dealer actually knew how to handle a natural nine. It was a refreshing change from the robotic dealers at some of the older casinos.

2. The Hotel: A Mid-Tier Masterpiece

Resorts World’s 3,500 rooms are divided into three brands: Hilton, Conrad, and Crocketts & Tubbs (a retro-themed boutique hotel). The rooms are not the most luxurious on the Strip—you won’t find the marble bathrooms of the Wynn or the tech gadgets of the Aria—but they’re comfortable. I stayed in a Conrad suite for a weekend, and here’s what I liked:

The Beds: Hilton’s “Serenity Bed” is one of the best in Vegas. I’ve slept in every major casino hotel bed, and this one is top five.
The Bathrooms: The showers have rainfall showerheads and body jets. Not as fancy as the Aria’s “smart showers,” but they get the job done.
The Views: The rooms on the north side of the hotel have unobstructed views of the Strip. I watched the Bellagio fountains from my balcony at 3 AM with a glass of Macallan 18.

3. The Technology: A Glimpse of the Future

Resorts World was the first casino on the Strip to go fully cashless. You can deposit money into your account via the app, then use your phone or a wristband to play slots, order drinks, or even pay for your hotel room. I tested the system for a week, and here’s how it worked:

Deposits: I linked my bank account to the app and deposited $5,000. The money was available instantly.
Slots: I played the “Lucky 88” machine using my phone. No tickets, no coins—just a QR code on the screen that I scanned with my phone.
Table Games: I bought into a blackjack table with my wristband. The dealer scanned it, and my buy-in was deducted from my account. When I cashed out, the money went straight back to my app.
Drinks: I ordered a gin and tonic from the app, and a cocktail waitress brought it to me at the slot machine. No tip required—the app automatically added a 20% gratuity.

The system isn’t perfect. I had one glitch where my wristband wouldn’t scan at a roulette table, and I had to call a supervisor. But overall, it’s a huge step forward for casino tech.

The Best Online Casino for Resorts World Fans: CoinFrenzy

If you’re reading this and thinking, “I wish I could play Resorts World’s slots from home,” I’ve got good news. CoinFrenzy (use code ACE for a 100% match up to $1,000) has some of the best Resorts World-style games online. I’ve tested their platform, and here’s what stands out:

Dragon’s Gold: A near-perfect replica of the Resorts World slot, with the same RTP and bonus features.
Lucky 88: Same as the Strip version, but with a higher RTP (96.5%).
Wall Street Blackjack: The same variant that was supposed to be in the New York casino floor, with the same payout multipliers.
Live Dealer Games: CoinFrenzy’s live blackjack and baccarat tables are streamed from a studio that looks like the Asian Palace casino. The dealers are actual dealers from Macau, and the atmosphere is as close as you’ll get to the real thing.

I deposited $2,000 and played for three hours. I hit a $5,000 jackpot on Dragon’s Gold and walked away with $3,800. The best part? No crowds, no smoke, no $20 cocktails.

The Legacy of the Resorts World That Never Was

Resorts World Las Vegas is a success story. It’s profitable, it’s popular, and it’s given the north Strip the shot in the arm it needed. But every time I walk through the casino, I can’t help but think about what could’ve been. The SkySpire. The three themed floors. The underground poker room. The floating casino barge.

Las Vegas has always been a city of dreams—some realized, some abandoned. The original Resorts World vision was one of the most ambitious dreams in Vegas history. It didn’t happen, but that doesn’t mean it’s forgotten. Steelman’s team still has the scale model in their Henderson office. Genting still owns the land. And who knows? In

The Resorts World That Never Was: Uncovering the Lost Vision for Las Vegas