Sign up for our Casino Insider newsletter and get the week’s best bets for food, entertainment and fun at Southern California’s casinos.
Casinos and card rooms in Los Angeles County also announced and began closures.Īs Southern California casinos closed, Las Vegas resorts also announced their plans to shutter, with MGM Resorts, owner of several Las Vegas Strip properties such as the MGM Grand, Bellagio and the Mirage, announcing that they would be closed starting Tuesday, March 17.
Tribal casinos were not the only entities to close over the weekend. San Manuel was one of the first casinos to announce a plan for a temporary closure over the weekend, but soon they were joined by several other casinos on tribal land, including Pechanga Resort Casino in Temecula, Augustine Casino in Coachella, Casino Pauma in Pauma Valley and Harrah’s Resort Southern California in Valley Center. The scene was the beginning of a shutdown by the casino that would last through the end of the month amid concerns over the novel coronavirus. As screens turned dark around them as the clock inched closer to 5 p.m., people still spun the reels on still-operational slot machines at San Manuel Casino in Highland on Sunday, March 15, while patrons sat playing video poker at closed bars that were no longer serving drinks.
