Three Las Vegas casino executives are touting the performance of the Fontainebleau Las Vegas, Virgin Hotels Las Vegas, and the Venetian. The three are positive in their outlook for the rest of 2025 and beyond.
Chad Konrad, manager and chief financial officer with Virgin Hotels Las Vegas, Daniel Ruiz, chief gaming officer for the Venetian Las Vegas, and Maurice Wooden, president of the Fontainebleau Las Vegas, are scheduled to be licensed by the Nevada Gaming Commission at its meeting on May 22. The trio were recommended for approval on Wednesday by the Nevada Gaming Control Board.
Ruiz is a former Caesars Entertainment executive who has been in his position with the Venetian since July 2023; he oversees gaming operations and casino marketing.
“We’re doing a multi-year transformation investing more than $1.5 billion in the resort,” Ruiz said. “We’ve been very successful the last couple of years with the ownership (by Apollo Global Management that took over in 2022) and during Q1 of this year. We all see what’s happening in the world and we’re cautious for the summer. But we’re excited for the years ahead. We have great restaurant openings and brand new suites coming online.”
Konrad and his new management company, C&C 4455 LLC, were approved in December by the Commission to take over the Virgin casino from the Mohegan Sun Tribe of Connecticut. The tribe had been managing the gaming operations since the hotel-casino reopened in spring 2021. Mohegan had a lease to operate the casino, then bowed out late last year. C&C 4455, with Virgin CEO Cliff Atkinson, assumed control on March 1.
“There has been good progress at the property,” Konrad said. “It’s been a short period, but since last December, we’ve been able to check some pretty big threshold items off the list. Ending the strike (in January with the Culinary Union) was very important to us. Jobs are intact, employees are back at the property, and we can move forward with the business.”
Konrad said they’re in the final stages of negotiating agreements with other unions as well.
Since the group took over the casino management, Konrad said they’ve been in the process of transitioning systems and re-branding from Mohegan. On March 20, they launched their own ground-up rewards program.
In response to a question, Konrad said the property has a pool, but nothing like the dayclub Rehab that inhabited the site from 2004 to 2018.
“That’s not the business we want to be in at this point,” Konrad said. “That part of the industry has advanced to the point where it’s probably not a profitable opportunity for us. We do run our pools with a 21-and-older and a resort pool that our customers are happy with. It’s not quite Rehab.”
Konrad said his company is operating the sportsbook through IGT; Mohegan took it over from Betfred in December.
Entertainment will be a key differentiator for the property. AEG is a partner for the theater and other venues are being programmed to bring in more acts. They’ve launched two residency shows in the past year and there’s live music with no cover.
Entertainment is important to Fontainebleau as well.
Wooden said the north Strip property, which opened in December 2023, is continuing to grow and “ascend into much better occupancies and contribution from customer visitation in restaurants.” Convention and group business is growing as well.
“We’re a much different property than we were in 2024,” Wooden said. “I was fortunate to join the team in (January) 2024. The narrative about the property wasn’t very positive at the time. There was a changeover in leadership and there wasn’t an identity to Fontainebleau Las Vegas. A lot of people back east know about the Miami property, but certainly in Las Vegas it’s different. Everybody has great products and experiences, so one of the key initiatives when we first started was to let people know about the Fontainebleau experience. Let’s tell the story and let people feel an emotional connection to this property, whether through advertising or social media,” Wooden said. “We thought we had an opportunity to share that this property is unique with the design, décor, and development being beautifully executed.”
As they ramped up in 2024, Wooden said they also identified the differences of being located on the north Strip, without the foot traffic like at center Strip.
“The challenge was to get customers in the building,” Wooden said. “Although we have a beautiful theater, there was no entertainment. In the first four months, we had one act and in the last six months, we had 54. Ninety percent of the people who come to those shows aren’t staying on the property. When people come to the property for the first time to see a show, they see something unique. We challenged customers to say, ‘Why are we staying somewhere else when we can stay here?’”
Wooden said the property has emphasized service, which Las Vegas has been built on.
“The beautiful decor and design are one thing, but the magic ingredient is the employees, the 6,300 people that make the place come to life every day,” Wooden said. “If we can lean into that with this beautiful new property and combine those two efforts, we can shift share and win customers. We continue to see that. I felt that in September of last year. You could see the momentum change. The end of last year and the beginning of this year, we’ve had 60% growth in our room occupancy, 60% to 70% growth in our food and beverage, and our convention and sales group has been extraordinary in filling those.”
Besides casino executives, the Board also recommended licensing of Joseph Connelly IV, a board member of Mesquite Gaming, the owner of the CasaBlanca and Virgin River Casino northeast of Las Vegas. Connelly was involved in the transaction in which Oaktree Capital Management acquired the properties in late 2023.
“Since the acquisition, we’ve invested tens of millions and intend to invest as much or more in the coming year,” Connelly said. “The properties have grown tremendously in both revenue and profitability. The CasaBlanca had been run down and you won’t recognize the casino. We have big plans to redo the food amenities. We’re very excited about Mesquite. Being so close to the most beautiful national parks in the country, it’s an incredible opportunity to create a staycation. We own more than 30 acres around those properties off the highway and the vision is to build a District like Green Valley Ranch outside CasaBlanca where people can do a staycation and visit the national parks, leaving Vegas with their families at an affordable rate. We’re heading in that direction. It’s still several years away, but that’s our vision.”
