Lucky Dragon spent $160M on a Vegas casino for Asian tourists — it closed in 2018

Lucky Dragon opened in November 2016 as a nine-story, 200-room hotel and casino on 2.5 acres near the northern end of the Las Vegas Strip. It was a niche bet: a boutique resort built specifically for Asian tourists and high-rollers, with a 27,500-square-foot casino floor, 37 table games and 300 slot machines, and Asian-focused dining.

The project was expensive and concentrated. The property cost more than $160 million to build, and the business model assumed a steady flow of Asian visitors willing to pay premium prices for a culturally tailored casino resort.

The customers never came in the numbers the plan needed. The casino and its restaurants closed in January 2018, the owners filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on 16 February 2018, and the hotel tower closed on 2 October 2018 — less than two years after opening.

The failure was among the fastest in Las Vegas casino history. A foreclosure auction on 30 October 2018 drew zero bids, leaving the property with its lenders. The building survived only by reinventing itself as a boutique hotel, the Ahern Luxury Boutique Hotel, with the casino gone.