The beach at Hyatt Regency Lake Tahoe.
Courtesy
Full House Resorts CEO Dan Lee said he expects the company’s short-term lease to operate the casino at the Hyatt Regency Lake Tahoe in Incline Village will be extended.
And that casino could reap benefits if Hyatt Lake Tahoe owner Larry Ellison, who purchased the picturesque property in 2021 for $345 million, remodels the resort. Ellison is the founder of database company Oracle and has a net worth of $184.8 billion, according to Forbes.
“He is moving ahead and the first phase is the stuff along the beachfront,” Lee said during Full House’s quarterly earnings conference call March 6. “Frankly, [the villas] along the beachfront were built 50 years ago and [the original developers] didn’t make use of the special real estate.”
Lee said the casino is in Hyatt Regency’s main building, which is across Lakeshore Boulevard from the villas. However, he said the casino operations “could be impacted because some of our customers like to stay in those villas.”
Full House said the lease, which it has held since 2011, has been renewed multiple times.
Long term, Lee said, “this already special property will probably be much more special under (Ellison) and we hope to continue to be part of it.” In addition to the villas, Lee said a restaurant, meeting rooms and banquet rooms would also be remodeled.
Hyatt’s casino is 19,000 square feet with 255 slot machines and 20 table games, which will become the smallest of Full House’s five properties once the $9.2 million sale of its Stockman's Casino in Fallon is completed.
Las Vegas-based Full House expects to gain approval for the sale later this month.
Full House announced the deal in September to sell the Fallon property to Clarity Game of Las Vegas, a partnership between Michael Gaughan III and David Ross. Clarity paid $7 million upfront for the land and Full House continued to operate the 8,400-square-foot casino under a $50,000-a-month lease agreement.
The sale will be finalized once the Nevada Gaming Commission signs off on Clarity as the operator, which is expected to happen March 27. Clarity will pay Full House the remaining $2.2 million.
Full House has been focused on efforts outside of Nevada. The company opened the $250 million, 300-room Chamonix Casino Resort in Cripple Creek, Colorado, in 2023 and is operating a temporary casino in Waukegan, Illinois, roughly 40 miles north of downtown Chicago, ahead of building a planned $500 million resort.
This story was published March 19 by The Nevada Independent and is republished with permission.