Viva Las Vegas!

17. Bally's Las Vegas

Las Vegas, NV

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This hotel tower seems almost quaint on The Strip today but it was the largest hotel in the world when it opened in 1973. The first building on the site had been the Three Coins Motel in 1963 which became the Bonanza Hotel and Casino in 1967. When owner Kirk Kerkorian cleared the Bonanza for his new $100 million property he named it for his movie studio, MGM. The MGM Grand ushered in the mega-resorts that have since dwarfed the building. In 1985 the hotel was sold to Bally Entertainment Corporation. Raymond Moloney founded the Bally Manufacturing Company at the height of the Great Depression in 1932 to manufacture pinball machines. The name comes from his first game which he called Bally-Hoo. Guests ride a moving sidewalk through a neon-lit tunnel into the casino to the accompaniment of hits from the Rat Pack of old Las Vegas fame.