The Boardwalk
“Step right up to ‘The Coney Island of Las Vegas!’ ” their own homepage, 1996
The Boardwalk
Four hundred and thirty-six feet of make-believe midway on the most expensive sidewalk on earth: a roller coaster that never rolled, a Ferris wheel ridden by mannequins, a forty-five-foot clown named Jocko - and behind all of it, the cheapest honest bed, steak and blackjack hand on the Strip.
Night on the Boardwalk: the make-believe Cyclone, 99¢ margaritas, $1.99 strawberry shortcake, Surf Buffet 24 hours and the clock tower holding 7:22. c. 1995–2002. Photo: Carol M. Highsmith - Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · Public domain (Carol M. Highsmith Archive - no known restrictions)
the lights move; Highsmith’s photograph remains unchanged
Photo: Carol M. Highsmith - Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · public domain, no known restrictions · modern light animation. Full provenance.
Stay till dark - the signs light up
The numbers, as posted.
A 2002 sign survey counted “a ridiculous amount of internally lit signage advertising everything from hotel promotions to prices of drinks.” People recite these numbers from memory twenty years later. They are the whole sales pitch, and the whole eulogy:
the lights move; the photographs remain unchanged
Photo: tonybistro (Flickr)
Photo: Rick Harrison (Flickr: sovietuk)
Photo: J. Cannaday, UNLV Neon Survey 2002
- $1.29breakfast special, 24 hours a dayblinking, per their own 1996 homepage
- 49¢shrimp cocktailthe marquee, 1992
- $3minimum tables - “HOME OF” said the coaster, in letters six feet tallthe facade, 2002–06
- 99¢margaritas, piña coladas, daiquiris & chi chisthe buffet marquee, photographed Nov. 2000
- 99¢a dozen cake doughnuts, made on site - six more for a pennyas remembered; priced per the Las Vegas Sun, 2006
- $25a room, a night - “frugal room rates” to the very endtheir own site, December 2005
Want Comps? Get This. The Players Club promised some of the Strip’s most liberal comps. The Casino →
Purple Reign The Prince Tribute Show 
Tuesday – Saturday 11pm to 2am Lighthouse Lounge
Purple Reign Tuesday through Saturday, 11 p.m. to 2 a.m. The Showroom →
Spectrum A Tribute to Motown and R&B 
Tuesday – Sunday 8:00pm to 10:45pm Lighthouse Lounge
Spectrum Motown and R&B, Tuesday through Sunday. The Showroom →
$1.99 Shrimp Cocktail The Deli Open 24 hours
$1.99 Shrimp Cocktail Open 24 hours, because somebody was always hungry. Eats →
The Only 24 Hour Buffet On The Strip! SurfBuffet
Surf Buffet The only 24-hour buffet on the Strip. Eats →
Home of the $3 Tables Six-foot letters made the minimum impossible to miss. The Casino →
$12.99 Prime Rib Dinner Bread, vegetables, potato and soup or salad included. Eats →
Seven surviving fascia bills, rebuilt in photographed order from the Boardwalk’s night views. Full provenance.
00:50
October 2001 · fifty seconds inside
The room still makes noise.
A guest’s camcorder kept the slot machines, the casino floor and the house speaking over the public-address system.
Put on headphonesHear the casino floor
Sound stays off until you press play.
Recorded inside the Boardwalk on a guest’s camcorder, October 2001 · © vidmem7856. The picture is a disclosed AI restoration of the casino’s own 2003 360° panorama of this floor; the small sign lettering in it is rebuilt, not legible in the original. Full provenance.
Their own brochure, c. 1996–98 - teal, hot pink, Jocko on the map, and “Boardwalk Casino, Inc. is traded on NASDAQ under the symbol BWLK” in the fine print. Scan: RetroLand U.S.A. (Flickr) · CC BY-NC 2.0
All new
Coney Island comes to Las Vegas!
That was the 1995 pitch: a Holiday Inn from 1966 puts on a carnival facade, registers a 45-foot clown with the SEC, and spends its last decade as the cheapest honest bed, steak and blackjack hand on the Strip - until CityCenter needed the dirt.
Holiday Inn to Viscount to Boardwalk to dust, in forty years. Every claim cited, every conflict flagged, ending at 2:35 a.m., May 9, 2006. the whole timeline, 1966–2006
Las Vegas Boulevard outside the Boardwalk · Julio López Saguar, 2004
Before the doors, the sidewalk was already performing
The supporting cast stood outside.
Newspaper boxes. Restaurant boards. A bus behind construction cloth. The Strip kept advertising while the Boardwalk kept being itself.
Keep walking. One more character was waiting near the casino entrance.
One dollar · one prophecy · no refunds
Zoltar was still taking dollars.
By October 2005, the roller coaster had never rolled and the end was already announced. Zoltar kept his post anyway: lights on, cards down, future available for a buck.
Zoltar outside the Boardwalk · October 2005
The cards were already on the table.
The machine spoke sixteen fortunes
Ask him.
The real machines cycled through spoken fortunes and dispensed printed cards with lucky numbers. Zoltar keeps the ritual here - every card uses documented wording transcribed from real machines.
Give Zoltar $1 Zoltar is considering it…
Zoltar speaks
Your future is waiting behind the curtain.
Press the button to receive a card.
Your lucky numbers
– · – · – · – · – · –
Play again!
The till so far: $0 paid to Zoltar at this address since July 2026
Characters Unlimited’s machines speak sixteen recorded fortunes; surviving card packs contain thirty-seven to fifty-five more. The lucky numbers are for fun, not for wagers. The till remembers dollars only - no money changes hands here.
The casino’s own homepage, glowing on the kind of Compaq that might have booked a room here. The on-screen postcard is the Boardwalk’s own, 2002; the surrounding period-room scene is a modern illustration. Full provenance.
You are here
This address belonged to the casino.
In 2002 the Boardwalk’s webmaster pointed lvboardwalk.com at the front desk, hung this postcard on the homepage, and wrote the only slogan the place ever needed: “This is the fun place to be … wish you were here!”
The address outlived the building. So this website lives where the casino’s own website did, and keeps the guestbook open.
Wish you were here.
Unaffiliated guest commentary · 2005–2026
The reviews are in.
Nobody remembers the Boardwalk politely. They remember it in exact dollar amounts, sticky floors, very strong vodka - and then say they miss it.
¼★ amenities / ★★★★★ memory
Unofficial house ratings. The quoted words are the guests’ own.
Swipe this hand of six guest comments →
Hand 1 of 8Reviews 1–6 of 48
“It was ledgendarily bad.”>
\- deamon-D
reply
“Quality depended on how drunk you were. Food was always hot.”
\- NotAtAllExciting
BOARDWALKHotel & Casino™
“I remember the floor being sticky and crunchy at the same time.”>
\- Minty-Cherries
BOARDWALKHotel & Casino™
“It was just a glass of vodka with a splash of cranberry juice.”>
\- Mondatta19
BOARDWALKHotel & Casino™
“Overkill but GREAT overkill.”>
\- Bennington\_Booyah, on Purple Reign
one reply later
“I’m sure we met any and all drink minimums!”
BOARDWALKHotel & Casino™
“After a few days ever one is calling you by name.”>
\- dynamicdueo, after booking the $19 room
BOARDWALKHotel & Casino™
“Tourist’s asking how to get to the rides. Sure do miss it.”>
\- June C.
BOARDWALKHotel & Casino™
← Previous hand Deal me Six more ♠ ♥ ♣ ♦
Forty-eight sourced recollections in the shoe. The last hand shuffles back to the first.
The fairest one-line review in the shoe
“A little musty near the end. Cheap food. Good place to gamble.”
\- Robert C., Facebook · twenty years on
It was cheap. It was small. It was a little shabby, and completely unembarrassed about all of it. If you were there, the postcard rack is still open.
Leave a postcard in the guestbook
The fun place to be, remembered fondly.