However, the real estate bubble popped in 2006, and it hit Vegas really hard. During good times, many developers tried to turn the north Strip around. Unfortunately for the Sahara, everything north of the Wynn on the Strip is suffering from urban blight. Come to think of it, the only ones left are the Tropicana, Flamingo, and Sahara.
Kitty-corner to the Sahara on that intersection is the self-proclaimed 'world's largest gift store.' It isn't every casino that has a major boulevard named after it. The Sahara sits on the southeast corner of Sahara and Las Vegas Blvd. At about 3500 words, this report runs pretty long, but the Sahara is a special kind of place that seems to engender being verbose. I visited the Sahara on October 8-9, 2009. In the 90's, the Sahara did a NASCAR themed expansion on the north end of the property, which includes a roller coaster. You can see from old black and white pictures on the walls that it didn't look much different back the fifties. It is a bit kitschy and dated, but I admire the effort. Not surprisingly, the Sahara has a Morocco kind of theme. As an example, when I visited, they were running a 'Dollar Days' promotion, which is #4 in Las Vegas Advisor's top ten list of values. Today, it casts its net towards economy-minded tourists, with low prices and low limits on the casino games. In 1952, the Sahara became the sixth casino to open on the Las Vegas Strip ( source).
