On January 22, KSNV-TV announced a new marketing program in downtown Las Vegas. Three casinos, Circa, The D, and Golden Gate, were going to begin taking Canadian dollars at par.
The par program is set to last until the end of August. It is a bold move. The exchange rate at the time of the announcement was $1.38 Canadian to $1.00 American. According to the KSNV story, holders of Canadian dollars will have to make a purchase or a bet to get an even exchange.
The originator of the promotion is Derek Stevens. Stevens is from Detroit and says he has a connection with Canada. “Canada has always been a part of my story, so I feel a deep connection to our Canadian visitors here in Las Vegas.” Then he invited them back. “What I want to do is invite Canada back to Las Vegas.” It is a good call. Canada is an important source of business for Sin City.
According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Canada is the largest international market for Vegas tourism. Between 2019 and 2024, Canadians accounted for 44 percent of global air travel to the city. In 2025, Canadian business to Las Vegas dropped 20 percent and flights from Canada dropped 30 percent. Given the persistent narrative of declining visitors to Las Vegas, recapturing some of the Canadian business becomes a really good idea.
Stevens is an idea man, a Las Vegas showman on the order of Sam Boyd, Benny Binnion, and Steve Wynn. He is a promoter and a risk taker. He and his brother, Greg, bought the Golden Gate Hotel and Casino in downtown Las Vegas in 2006 and added Fitzgeralds in 2011, rebranding it the D. In 2020, the Stevens brothers opened Circa, a billion-dollar resort with over 600 rooms and the tallest building idowntown. It is also the costliest and it illustrates Stevens as a risk taker; downtown is not the Strip. Steve Wynn was also a risk taker and a fan of downtown, Wynn started his road to fame with the Golden Nugget ion Fremont Street. But when Wynn wanted to go big and expensive, he looked to the Strip. Stevens stayed downtown.
Derek and Greg are a team, but Derek is the face of the team, the promoter, the showman. He is in public smiling, giving interviews, and making grandiose statements. One of the grandest of his statements concerned the sportsbook at Circa. Stevens claimed it was the largest in the world. He did not stop with bragging about the size of the facility; he joined a Vegas fraternity and tradition, NFL betting contests, with a splash.
Sports betting contests are over 30 years old in Las Vegas. Players register and pay an entry fee. Each week, they submit cards covering that week’s NFL games. It was a marketing idea intended to bring players to the casino each week, with the hope that besides submitting a card, the person might make a bet on a table game or play a slot machine. All the casinos catering to locals have a contest. The contests regularly draw thousands of contestants, though whether they make another bet is another question. Stevens did not ask that question. Instead, he set out to set more records. In the 2025-26 NFL season, Circa held three contests, two with a $1,000 entry fee and one for $100,000. Total entries were 24,472 and the prize money over $30 million.
Stevens did not stop at the city limits; he has taken his sportsbooks to other jurisdictions. Circa now has sports betting operations, both retail and mobile, in Nevada, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, and Missouri. In Missouri, Circa beat out FanDuel for one of the untethered licenses.
It was a Steve Wynn-like charm move; Stevens convinced the regulators that he was as good as or better than the two biggest sportsbook operators in the country. Between them, DraftKings and FanDuel book 75 percent of the sports bets in the country. FanDuel has 40 percent.
Like his NFL contests, Stevens did not invent the idea of taking Canadian at par. In the 1980s, casinos in Reno had used currency as a marketing tool for years. The promotion stopped when the gap between the Canadian and U.S. dollars grew too large. The point was usually when the loonie was $1.20 to $1.00 for the greenback. Circa is starting out at $1.38. The casino will probably set more records with the number of Canadians that visit, maybe even the amount they wager. But whether it is a money-making promotion is the question.
We will not get an answer to that question. Circa’s numbers are not public. Stevens is not accountable to stockholders or analysts; he is free to say and do what he wants as long as it is legal. Profitable or not, it is nearly certain that Derek Stevens will step into the spotlight and give the press a good quote — and most likely announce something new. The grass does not grow under his feet.
