The ever changing kaleidoscope that is the glittery lights of Las Vegas have beamed out across Nevada for over 50 years. But there has been one shining light more integral to the strip than Thomas Edison invention of the light bulb.

And luck doesn’t come into it for Binion’s horseshoe shaped hotel and Casino, which has stood in down town Las Vegas since the start at a time the city started building the reputation it has today. On this very day, the hotel reaches its 60th anniversary and with it, the acclaim of being one of Las Vegas’ founding casinos.

The name sake hotel was founded by Benny Binion, who was in essence the professor of Las Vegas and many of the principles he schooled into his casino were at the time pioneering, but are now part of the fundamental Vegas experience.

His impressive list of firsts included carpeted floors and air-conditioning, complimentary drinks to those who gambled, a tag on premium steak house and airport limousines for high rollers.

Many of these services are still employed amongst even the newest casinos in Vegas – a bench mark that Binion set over sixty years ago.

Benny Binion started his Vegas venture at the height of when the city’s organised crime syndicates were at their most prevelant. In a generation where tough men ran the glittery strip of Nevada, solidifying that business acumen then should mean that Binion’s should stand the test of time.

Binion’s has been the venue for where the World Series Poker is held and has been since the tournament started in 1970. It is because of this, that Binion’s name carries a lot of weight in downtown Vegas for being the origins of professional poker. Now, Binion’s owners preserve the rights to the World Series Poker name, even though it is now held at the Rio Casino.

That’s not to say that the horseshoe shaped casino hasn’t had its problems. In 2004 the casino had to shut down, after issues were raised regarding outstanding payments for employee benefits. Binion’s didn’t really recover that loss for a number of years, after US marshals seized the cash in the January of that year. It was only 2 years ago, when the casino closed its hotel rooms and coffee shop and it began to look more financially stable with an investment from Harrah’s entertainment only supporting this.

But for the man who started it all, there is no greater tribute than what the Las Vegas strip has become. Since his death in 1989, the city’s modern day impresarios still make time to recognise his memory. Binion will continue eulogised as an entertainment academic who never learned to read. Steven Wynn of Wynn Resorts said; ‘He was either the toughest gentleman I ever knew or the gentlest tough man I ever knew’.

A great innovator, whose achievements continue to shine bright – not just for now, but for the foreseeable future too…