[Grant]

Three things happened recently that have stirred up the rumor mill surrounding the fate of the Tropicana. The first was that parent company Aztar Gaming announced stellar third quarter earnings, up nearly 30 percent over last year. Most of those dollars came from the company's Atlantic City properties, which means that not only does the company have some big bucks to play with, but it's obvious that the Tropicana in Vegas is not generating the kind of results it wants.

The second was that officials with the company, while announcing their big earnings numbers, essentially refused to say what they were going to do with the Tropicana in Las Vegas, sticking to the "we're still thinking about it" mantra they've been using for the last couple of years. That seems to make people suspicious that they are up to something and just don't want to let the cat out of the bag.

The third thing that happened is the Tropicana stopped taking reservations past February 2006.

Now, that last one may seem more significant than it really is. If you go back and read the columns for the last couple of years, you'll see more than one instance when the hotel was not taking bookings past a certain date, leading to similar rumors. For instance, at various times I have predicted the hotel would not be around past 2003, 2004,and 2005 and look -- it's still there.

Having said all that, it seems as if things may be finally coming to a head and that 2006 may be the year when something finally happens to the legendary hotel.

Source: Vegas4Visitors