Betfair Official Blog

The Sands of Time

End of the line for an icon

LAST night the former Sands Casino Hotel, Atlantic City, New Jersey, was demolished. It took less than 20 seconds for the 21-story, 500-room tower to fall.

This was the place Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. and the Rat Pack called their East Coast home. It was the first gambling house in Atlantic City to offer poker. That it should fall in the week when Joey Bishop died - he was the last of the Rat Pack - is not without poignancy.

As a fireworks display bathed the area in multicolored flashes of light and a public address system blared Sinatra crooning "Bye Bye, Baby," Gov. Jon Corzine and Pinnacle chairman Daniel Lee pushed a wooden-handled plunger connected to a wire running to the building to set off the explosions.

The Sands was razed to make way for a new $1.5 billion to $2 billion casino hotel to be built by 2011 by Pinnacle Entertainment.

But all was not lost. The Sands Casino Hotel liquidation sale saw punters claim just about everything. The casino sold off its contents, including hotel furnishings, restaurant equipment and artwork.