As far as anyone knew, it was the last Saturday night at the Primm Valley Resort & Casino before the casino floor would go dark.
On Saturday, June 27, an employee named Melrose walked the floor, “protecting her games.” She had worked at Primm Valley — the last casino in Primm, a company town at the Nevada-California border in the Mojave Desert — for 31 years. Melrose, who preferred to use only her first name, had big curly hair and wore an all-black uniform with an oversized cash belt.
“People do all sorts of crazy stuff to the machines when they lose money,” she said. A warm magenta light bathed her face as she strode across plush carpeting worn by years of vacuuming and foot traffic. Thirty or so people wandered a room intended for thousands.
Only a few casino games blinked and whirred; more than half had already been turned off. Only one bar was open, and the Bonnie & Clyde Diner’s menu was down to just pizza and hot dogs. The escalators hadn’t operated since 2020.
On that night, Primm Valley was the last casino in town. Whiskey Pete’s, a castle-themed outfit, had closed in 2024, though its gas station remained open. The roller coasters at Buffalo Bill’s, a Western fantasy mining resort, shut down last summer. The amenities in Primm diminished, and so did the crowds. Prizm Outlets, once a massive 100-store mall, had just one store left.
In the casino, the Top 40 music was turned up a notch too loud, dampening the bings and ka-chings of the few games still on. “Everything is going to be OK,” Melrose repeated, rocking back and forth on her heels. Maintenance workers moved around the floor, wiping down buttons that had not been touched.
Ever since the pandemic, Primm’s casino floors haven’t quite filled up much more than this. Even so, a shock wave went through the community on May 5, when Affinity Interactive announced that it was closing all of its properties in Primm — the resort, the casino, two gas stations, travel centers and the Lotto Store. Everything would close on July 4. The more than 300 workers who lived in the Desert Oasis Apartments were given 60 days to find new housing and a new job.
“I was really panicking, because I didn’t know where to go,” said Karine Fersch, who lived in the Desert Oasis and worked at the Sanithrift, the one remaining store in the nearly dead Prizm mall. She’d been in Primm for nine years and remembered better, busier times. “We had tourists from around the world, Californians, people in Nevada, and it was really busy,” she said. Even the golf course where she used to work closed in 2025, and the grass dried up.
For three excruciating weeks after Affinity’s announcement, a mad scramble was underway to save Primm. “Everyone pretends that it’s the owners taking all the risk,” said one person on TikTok. Rumors swirled. Regulars rushed to play one last game and threw money and notes into the glass-enclosed exhibit where Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow’s bullet-riddled car was on display. A cashier whose name tag read “Lenoir” leaned over the counter at the Primm Center, a gas station and convenience store with a room dedicated to slots, and said she had heard that MGM was going to buy it.
And then, at what felt like the last minute, the miracle happened: Primm would stay open after all. But nobody who lived and worked there had any idea what exactly that meant.
ORIGINALLY NAMED State Line for its literal location, Primm became Primm in 1996, named for the family who built a cluster of themed casinos there starting in 1950.
Back in the 1990s and early 2000s, millions of travelers stopped to stay and play in Primm, a gateway community between Southern California and Las Vegas — one of the last stops before Las Vegas on a desolate stretch of highway.
The casinos in the desert town reflected an older era of entertainment and casino culture defined by spectacle and roadside allure, when casinos were not merely places to gamble, but immersive destinations designed to capture travelers’ attention. Since then, Primm changed hands many times before 2011, when Affinity Interactive, a mid-sized regional gaming and hospitality company, took over.
“This place was spectacular,” said Robert, a man who’d driven down from Las Vegas was taking photos on a film camera in the parking lot of Buffalo Bill’s. An artificial mountain rose from the asphalt parking lot, and wind-tattered signs pointed toward the neighboring resort: “The Party is at Primm Valley.” Buffalo Bill’s closed a year ago, but when we peeked through the glass front doors, the games were still on and flashing in the empty room. A white security pickup passed us but paid no heed to Robert.
“This place was spectacular.”
“Would you care after your boss laid you off and kicked you out of your house, with two weeks left of work?” he said.
The Primm family, who continued to lease the land underneath the casinos, condemned Affinity’s decision to shut down all of its businesses, knowing it would essentially shut down the town. Cory Clemetson, grandson of founder Ernie Primm, released a statement on behalf of his family: “We hoped that the operators could have done more to ensure the continued operation of the hotel-casino and related properties. We were also disappointed that we weren’t given much notice before this announcement.”
But the land underneath Affinity’s buildings was still in the family’s hands, and on June 9, the family reached an agreement with Terrible’s, a chain of gas stations owned by the Herbst family. The deal would not only keep Primm Valley Resort operating, it would give the town a facelift and re-open Buffalo Bill’s on weekends for concerts. Apartment leases would not be terminated, and workers would get to keep their jobs after all.
Like the Primm family, the Herbst family is no stranger to this stretch of desert; their “Terrible’s” brand has long been woven into Nevada’s roadsides — places where you can stop to fill up your vehicle, take a break and hit some slots.
Places like Primm have been on the brink of becoming ghost towns for decades. Other towns have suffered, too. The gaming and gas station chain stepped in when nearby Jean, the next town over from Primm, lost its own longtime casino, Nevada Landing, in 2007, which was demolished to make way for a planned community that was never built. Aside from an airport, a post office and a terracotta-colored prison (which closed in July), two Terrible’s gas stations (one alien-themed) were the only businesses in Jean.
Primm’s rise, fall and near-ghost town status reflects southern Nevada’s declining tourism market in recent years as well as a broader shift in traveler behavior. Though it raked in more cash than usual due to inflated pricing, in 2025, Las Vegas saw a 7.5% drop in visitors — the largest non-pandemic-related annual decline since the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority began tracking visitation in 1970.
In late June, the Nevada Gaming Commission held an emergency hearing and approved the licensing transfer, allowing the deal between the Herbst and Primm families to go through. In the days that followed, Primm’s slot machines were drained and rows of electronic casino game screen went dark as the casino prepared for the change in ownership. For the few remaining employees who had not already worked their final shifts and moved on, it looked like there was still a future to be had at Primm Valley.
But the details remained unclear. Would the name on the casino and travel centers change from Primm to Terrible’s? The cashier at one of the gas stations shrugged and giggled when I asked. The wall-to-wall fridges at that gas station and at the Primm travel center were nearly empty, the beer cave had been cleared, and the last of the snacks — a few bags of El Chavito spicy mango candies — discounted.
Another employee who said they’d worked and lived in Primm for 28 years stood alone in the roadside slot parlor inside the travel center, wearing a turquoise button-up uniform, surrounded by blank progressive slot machines. Only one machine was on.
On the evening of June 28, as Primm Valley’s operations wound down and Terrible’s began, none of the employees seemed to know exactly what would happen: “Everything closes at midnight tonight,” someone at the Bonnie & Clyde diner speculated. “Even the games.”
Two women asked the casino bartender when they’d reopen. “No idea,” he answered, twisting the cap of an orange juice bottle closed. (Both Terrible’s and the Primm family declined a request for comment by High Country News.)
But that night at midnight, the games stayed on. The Top 40 songs kept playing. A man in a cowboy hat cashed out at the bar, tipped his hat, and disappeared through the casino doors into the desert summer night — a fitting image for a place caught uncertainly between its past and whatever future might come next.
Seventeen days later, on July 22, a video posted to Facebook announced Primm Valley’s reopening. In it, a crowd of people walked through the automatic sliding glass doors, pumping their fists. One raised a cane. People clapped and cameras flashed. The casino floor sat unchanged despite the unseen licensing switchover that nearly shut the town down for good, and drove the point home to workers that their jobs and homes are temporary if someone decides the numbers don’t pan out.
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