Skip to content
Vegas Retold

The history of Harrah's Las Vegas

Opened July 2, 1973

The illuminated Holiday Casino and Holiday Inn signs at night in 1989, with the Galley Buffet advertisement and riverboat-themed frontage.
Holiday Casino and Holiday Inn signs in September 1989, before the Harrah’s renaming. Buffet prices, game rules and advertised performances are historical.

LBM1948 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Image source· License

Original photograph retained without editorial alteration. Responsive displays may resize and crop the presentation.

Harrah’s Las Vegas traces its casino history to the Holiday Casino, which the operator dates to July 2, 1973. The Harrah’s name arrived in 1992. Its earlier riverboat appearance and later carnival theme belong to a changing resort, rather than two casinos on different sites.

The riverboat and Claudine Williams

Shelby and Claudine Williams took over the River Queen casino in 1973 and renamed it the Holiday Casino, according to UNLV’s Claudine Williams Papers. Their experience included the Silver Slipper. After Shelby’s death in 1977, Claudine led the Holiday operation. Her role gives this property a history of casino management that reaches beyond the name on its present sign.

The Harrah’s name

UNLV records Holiday Inn’s acquisition of full ownership in 1983 and Harrah’s subsequent management. The 1992 change made this Harrah’s Las Vegas. The boat imagery gradually gave way to the larger resort’s carnival presentation. The separate Showboat casino on east Fremont Street had also used riverboat imagery; it was not this Strip property, and its later Castaways history belongs elsewhere.

Renovating the existing resort

The resort continued to change through renovation. Caesars’ 2024 fact sheet records Valley Tower room work in 2016 and 2018, followed by the Mountain Tower redesign in 2020. It also describes the investment associated with the 2021 casino-floor remodeling and new entrance marquees. These were improvements to the operating resort, not a fresh casino opening under a new identity.

Reading the Holiday photograph

Harrah’s remains a hotel-casino at 3475 South Las Vegas Boulevard in October 2026, beside the LINQ area. The retained historical night photograph records its Holiday Casino and Holiday Inn signs in September 1989, before the Harrah’s renaming. Its advertised buffet prices, games and performances are historical. The building-area map is a representative location, not a reconstruction of the original casino or a route to an entrance.

  1. The Holiday opening and later renovations

  2. Claudine Williams and casino management

  3. The Strip riverboat and its changing theme

  4. Harrah’s and LINQ in the operator’s 2026 program

  5. The dated source photograph

  6. The representative current building-area location

What remains uncertain

  • UNLV’s Skyline summary places a River Queen phase in 1971, while the operator dates the Holiday Casino opening to July 2, 1973. This page uses the latter date for the Holiday casino and leaves the exact earlier hotel/casino sequence unresolved.
  • The former motel sites and each stage of tower construction have not been mapped as surveyed historical footprints. The map uses the current qualified building-area point, not an original doorway or the full grounds.
  • The September 1989 photograph shows the same property’s earlier Holiday identity. Its prices, signs and advertised entertainment do not establish present offers or schedules.
Suggest a correction or source