Primm’s Casino Empire Fades: Affinity Gaming Shutters Buffalo Bill’s
Affinnity Gaming, which owns three resort properties in the sleepy town of Primm, Nevada, continues a game of three-card monte, with which the casino is currently open.
World famous Primm Nevada is down to just one casino. © Walter Sepulveda Unsplash
Key Facts:
- The once bustling town of Primm has just one casino left standing.
- Whiskey Pete’s was “temporarily” closed in December.
- It’s world-famous neighbor, Buffalo Bill’s, will shut down after the Fourth of July holiday.
- Affinity Gaming, which owns all three properties, has struggled with declining tourism after Covid.
Pete McIntyre and his wife, Loretta Enders, knew the real meaning of struggle in the vast desert between Los Angeles and the then-just wide spot on the road that was Las Vegas before the Second World War.
Located about an hour South of Las Vegas, on the I-15, the old gas station run by Whiskey Pete certainly wasn’t enough to pay the bills in the hard scrabble desert of the 1920s and 1930s. And the reputed former miner may not have known much about either mining or selling gas, but by all accounts, he was a rock-solid bootlegger.
He had, after all, done some prison time out in California for running a Blind Pig, which, despite what must be some fascinating etymological background, is just another term for a speakeasy.
And so it was back to bootlegging old Pete turned, selling gas up front and liquor out the back while feuding with locals and tourists alike.
His jail record lists his occupation as a miner. Still, other than that and his choice in attire, there isn’t all that much to substantiate this other than his untimely death a few years later from what was termed miner’s lung, but was probably run-of-the-mill tuberculosis.
Legend has it that Whiskey Pete’s dying wish was to be buried standing up, with a whiskey bottle in one hand, and his six shooters strapped to both hips, with a view out to what then was the old Arrowhead Highway, cause he just wanted to “watch all those SOB’s going by”.
His numerous run-ins with the law, including shooting a US postmaster, had left him a bit notorious in Las Vegas by the time of his death in 1933. Those and the reported haunted sightings of an old miner near the gas station were enough to keep Whiskey Pete’s legend alive for the next forty years.
Whiskey Pete’s Unlikely Legacy
Then in 1977, Ernest Primm would turn that legend into rock-solid American marketing, opening Whiskey Pete’s a 777 room casino aimed squarely at middle America.
Rooms and buffets were priced at about half of what the Strip offered. They soon found themselves with more business than they could handle, especially with families from Los Angeles looking for a stop on the long drive up to Las Vegas.
Ernest’s son, Gary, would open the Primm Valley Resort in 1990 and Buffalo Bill’s in 1994. There would be roller coasters, the world’s tallest at the time, Log Rides, and a 370,000-square-foot outlet mall, as well as a tram to transport guests from one resort stop to the next.
There was even an exhibit of the Bonnie and Clyde “death car”, which would wow the public over the intervening decades.
It was featured prominently in the hit video game Fallout: Vegas, which substituted Whiskey Pete’s for their fictional Vikki and Vance casino.
This feature of the game proved so popular that the Buffalo Bill’s would also be portrayed in the follow-up game in the franchise’s sequel, Fallout: New Vegas, making an appearance as the Bison Steve Hotel.
Whiskey Pete’s Curse
In 1994, a bulldozer clearing the way for a pedestrian bridge on the property made a gruesome discovery. The blade caught the corner of a long-buried plywood box, and out popped a skull.
It was Whiskey Pete’s long-lost burial site. That bizarre discovery marked the beginning of a long and steady decline, one that no amount of themed attractions could ultimately stave off.
It was widely reported that he didn’t have a bottle of whiskey or his six shooters in the coffin with him, but we believe that’s just the kind of unkind thing the press said about him in life.
One thing that can’t be denied is that the properties’ upward trajectory soon took a turn for the worse. The Primms were forced to sell to the casino conglomerate MGM Mirage just a few short years later, who largely neglected and ignored the properties until they sold them in late 2006 to Herbst Gaming.
Herbst hugely overpaid for the properties at $400 million, even though they included more than 2,600 rooms altogether and about 136,000 square feet of casino space.
Their timing couldn’t have been any worse either, taking on enormous debt right before the 2008 Great Recession and expanding tribal gaming in their core market of California.
Subsequently, the casinos, hotels, and entertainment venues saw even less reinvestment over the next couple of years until the company was forced into bankruptcy.
They would emerge from bankruptcy proceedings in a few years as Affinity Gaming. This company was comprised of approximately 140 debt holders, although the Herbst family was no longer involved.
The new company was also not inclined to make significant capital improvements and was particularly hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.
While all three resorts would eventually reopen by late 2022, it was apparent that people’s preferences had changed.
Visit numbers at Primm no longer could support three full-time casinos or hotels, so the process of using just one casino or hotel began unless there was a concert or event.
Then, in December of 2024, the decision was made to officially close Whiskey Pete’s for good. That was followed by the news this week that Buffalo Bill’s would also be closing with less than a week’s advance notice. However, it would be an overstatement to say that it came as a complete surprise.
Affinity’s official line is that these properties are undergoing redevelopment, but this will likely allow them to keep the gaming licenses in place if a buyer is found.
