Las Vegas Sands Corp. Strips Casino from Texas Entertainment Complex Proposal

Shortly after receiving rezoning approval for a casino and entertainment complex, Las Vegas Sands Corporation is amending its plans.

The Vegas-based casino company asked the Irving City Council to remove the casino portion of its proposal from its zoning amendment following community backlash. The revised project calls for retail spaces, housing units, a hotel, and an arena.

The 1,001-acre facility will include the former site of Texas Stadium near Highway 114.

Casino out, complex still in

The Irving council approved Sands’ request to remove the casino on Friday morning. Nearly 200 residents showed up to a Thursday meeting, at which most of them shared their criticism of the casino.

Sands representatives told the council and locals that it would not be able to build the casino until the Texas legislature reversed its longstanding opposition to the expansion of gambling. 

In response, some locals said that a destination resort would only help the local economy if Texas legalized casino gambling.

“At this time, given the current status of gaming expansion legislation in the state and certainly some of the concerns that are being spoken in our several meetings here, Sands has asked the Irving City Council to remove the destination resort and gaming component from the proposal initially sent to you and instead consider approval of the balance of the uses in the rezoning entitlement,” said Mark Boekenheide, senior vice president of global real estate development for Las Vegas Sands Corp.

The council eventually held two separate votes, both of which ended 6-3 in favor of amending the zoning proposal to strip the casino. The council also did not ban the possibility of building a casino at the complex site if Texas’ state gaming laws were amended at any time in the future.

Is a casino still a possibility?

Las Vegas Sands has already devoted hordes of money toward lobbying efforts at the state level in pursuit of legal casino gaming. However, progress has been hard to come by, especially in light of the state’s recent decision to ban lottery couriers. 

Several guests at the Thursday meeting also said they would have preferred if gambling was outright prohibited from the complex’s future use. 

Connections have long been drawn between Las Vegas Sands and the Dallas Mavericks since Sands’ majority shareholder, Miriam Adelson, purchased the Mavs from Mark Cuban in December 2023.

Adelson reportedly holds an interest in moving the Mavericks to or near a facility that include hotel and gaming options.

However, Mavs CEO Rick Welts told The Dallas Morning News last week that they were going “to exhaust every possible option in the city of Dallas before considering pivoting to another location in the Metroplex.”

Sands is also on record saying that it would need 5-7 years of preparation before it could open a gaming facility if the Texas Constitution is amended to allow casino gambling.