Las Vegas had plenty of business news in 2025, from declining tourism to casino real estate deals and the late Tony Hsieh’s alleged forged will.
Here are five of the year’s biggest business stories.
The slowdown of tourism
Southern Nevada relies heavily on visitors who travel here to spend a lot of time eating, drinking, gambling, partying, and attending shows and conventions to boost the local economy.
But amid a series of financial headwinds — and as President Donald Trump’s trade war stoked widespread financial anxiety — fewer people took Vegas vacations in the past year.
About 32.3 million people visited Las Vegas this year through October, down 7.6 percent, or down more than 2.6 million people, from the same 10-month stretch last year, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.
There were some signs lately that America’s casino capital might be headed in a better direction, but local executives were by no means ready to celebrate.
Southern Nevada business confidence fell this quarter to its lowest level since the Great Recession, according to UNLV’s Center for Business and Economic Research.
Tony Hsieh’s Will
Tony Hsieh, former CEO of online shoe retailer Zappos and the face of downtown Las Vegas’ economic revival, died in 2020 at age 46 from injuries sustained in a house fire in Connecticut.
Hsieh’s father, Richard Hsieh, has been managing his son’s estate, and the father’s legal team has repeatedly stated in court filings that the younger Hsieh died intestate.
But Hsieh’s alleged will and testament was filed in the tech mogul’s will in April — more than four years after his death. And since then, the surprising turn of events has only gotten more bizarre.
The will emerged under still unclear circumstances, and throughout the year there were no clear answers as to who the key people tied to the will even are.
On December 15, lawyers for Hsieh’s estate filed court documents claiming the will is a forgery.
Tilman Fertitta’s parking lot
Houston billionaire Tilman Fertitta bought 6 acres on the Las Vegas Strip in 2022 for $270 million and secured approvals for a high-rise hotel-casino.
But after he became the US ambassador to Italy, the property was turned into a parking lot this year.
The site, at the southeast corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Harmon Avenue, became home to a new shallow lot that charged a minimum of $14.99 for up to three hours of parking, as seen this summer.
Steven Scheinthal, executive vice president and general counsel of Fertitta Entertainment, said in July that Fertitta owned 13 million shares of Wynn Resorts and saw a competing upscale casino on Las Vegas Boulevard as a “conflict of interest.”
As a result, Fertitta had “no plans to continue with the project as long as he retains his Wynn ownership,” Scheinthal said.
Derek Stevens purchase of land
Casino executive Derek Stevens acquired another piece of Las Vegas history, buying the land under the Golden Gate downtown.
His $19 million purchase closed in October, property records show.
Stevens has long owned and operated the historic hotel-casino at the corner of Fremont and Main streets. As he explained it, he bought the land from descendants of John F. Miller, who in 1906 built the Hotel Nevada, which still stands after a history of name changes, expansions and other new features and has long been known as the Golden Gate.
The family sold the lot to Stevens through an entity formed in 1908 as the Hotel Nevada Mining Company.
The entity is now called Sal Sagev Hotel Co. Inc., as the hotel’s name was changed in 1931 to Las Vegas spelled backwards.
Probate law changes
Gov. Joe Lombardo signed a bill in June that changed Nevada’s probate law, after the Las Vegas Review-Journal found that outsiders made money from dead people’s homes for years but often didn’t make a dime for heirs.
The governor approved Senate Bill 404, which added steps needed to take over a dead person’s estate and limited who can get court authority to sell homes through an expedited process in probate court.
An audit journal published last year found that a group of private administrators, real estate agents, lawyers and house flippers had been reaping paydays selling dead people’s homes across southern Nevada for years, through probate cases that routinely started without family involvement.
Under Nevada law, virtually anyone could handle a probate case — even if they had no connection to the deceased — and sell the deceased’s home with limited court oversight, the paper found.
The Senate Judiciary Committee introduced SB 404 in March.
Late. Melanie Scheible, D-Las Vegas, chairwoman of the committee, said she really wasn’t aware of the problems in the probate court until she read the Review-Journal’s coverage.
Contact Eli Segall at esegall@ theplayerlounge.com or 702-383-0342.
