Caesars Entertainment: Eldorado's Reno Roots, a Ransom and an Icahn Fight

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The company that runs Caesars today began in May 1973, when investors led by Don Carano opened the Eldorado Hotel in Reno. In 1995 the family partnered with Circus Circus on the neighboring Silver Legacy, and in 1996 it reorganized as Eldorado Resorts LLC with a $100 million bond offering. Under CEO Gary Carano, Eldorado completed a reverse merger with the publicly traded racino operator MTR Gaming Group in 2013 and 2014, gaining a listing and properties in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. It then bought MGM's half of the Silver Legacy for $73 million, Isle of Capri for $1.7 billion and Tropicana Entertainment for $640 million, with Gaming and Leisure Properties buying the real estate and leasing it back for $88 million a year.

In 2019 Eldorado, with 26 properties, agreed to buy Caesars Entertainment, with 53, for $18 billion, then took the Caesars name. Regulators required asset sales to buyers including Vici Properties, Century Casinos and Twin River, and the deal closed in July 2020 during the pandemic. Caesars bought William Hill for $3.7 billion in 2021, kept the U.S. business and sold the rest to 888 Holdings for $3 billion. In September 2023 the group known as Scattered Spider breached Caesars through an outside IT vendor, and Caesars paid $15 million of a $30 million demand. In September 2025 it dropped out of the S&P 500, and in May 2026 Fertitta Entertainment agreed to a $5.7 billion equity deal while Carl Icahn prepared a rival bid.

• The breach exposed driver's license numbers and possibly Social Security numbers from a rewards database of 65 million members.
• Caesars sold the World Series of Poker brand for $500 million but kept rights to host the main event for 20 years.
• ESPN dropped its Caesars partnership in 2023 to launch ESPN Bet with Penn Entertainment.
• A community advisory board rejected a proposed Caesars Palace in New York's Times Square.
• The Fertitta deal assumed nearly $12 billion in debt, and Icahn's reported counteroffer was $33 per share against $31.