PRIMM, Nevada — As the sun set just before 8 p.m., the bison-headed neon marquee welcoming visitors to Primm flickered faintly. The animal’s face was dark, though the words “Buffalo Bill’s” remained alight — for now — for the down-on-its-luck resort and casino.

Inland Empire residents Marcy Glenn and Kristina Gula parked in a mostly vacant lot and ran to pose for a selfie in front of the sign. One last snapshot.

“I’ve been coming here since I was a kid, when I was handed a bag of quarters to play all day at the arcade,” Gula said. “I just can’t believe it’s closing.”

Primm was once one of Nevada’s more popular gambling resorts, a less expensive, less flashy, slightly more kitschy alternative to Las Vegas that benefited from being a good 45 minutes closer than Sin City.

It was the place where you could stop and ride the iconic freeway-adjacent roller coaster, ogle the Bonnie and Clyde “Death Car” or shop at the premium outlet mall.

But a series of factors has contributed to Primm’s slow decline, including the COVID pandemic and increased competition from casinos popping up on tribal lands in California.

Those newer casinos are easier to get to than Primm from key Southern California population centers, reducing the value proposition.

Las Vegas has suffered a tourism drop, with regular and casual visitors complaining about the cost of resort fees, parking and other amenities. But that so far has not helped Primm’s prospects.

Lights still glow on the Buffalo Bill’s Resort and Casino sign in July.

The Western-themed Buffalo Bill’s resort in Primm concluded a 31-year run of regular business on July 6. Its owner, Affinity Gaming, ended its “24/7 operations,” not a positive sign in an area acclaimed for nonstop action. Buffalo Bill’s partial shuttering follows Affinity’s recent closure of its nearby Whiskey Pete’s resort, leaving the Primm Valley Casino Resorts as the lone survivor.

Rancho Cucamonga friends Glenn and Gula often visited the town — which includes a popular lotto store where Nevadans can buy California lottery tickets, chain fast-food spots, a pair of gas stations and a virtually abandoned mall that once welcomed crowds of daily visitors.

On this weekend, however, the duo stayed at a Sin City short-term rental.

“There’s no easy answer as to why Primm is in its current state,” said Amanda Belarmino, associate professor of hospitality management at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “They’ve had a slow decline expedited by COVID-19, and they’ve been unable to respond to competition in California and southern Nevada.”

The Desperado roller coaster at Buffalo Bill’s Resort and Casino, once one of the tallest and fastest coasters in the world, has long been closed to the public.

A screaming coaster and a $7 prime rib dinner

In American mystery writer Dolores Hitchens’ 1955 classic, “Sleep With Strangers,” the novel’s hero, private investigator Jim Sader, drives from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, noting his trip includes only “empty valley” and the “shimmering mist of heat.”

When he finally pulls over at a state-line roadside diner, he finds a barn-like restaurant split into halves: one side for slot machines and cards and the other for a soda fountain and lunch counter. Customers “who couldn’t wait for Las Vegas” are pulling the levers at the slots.

That vision of dining, playing and staying just across the state line was one that called to Ernest Primm. It was in the ’50s that he installed a motel and coffee shop at a spot in the road called State Line. Primm was the poker czar of the South Bay. Starting in the 1930s, he ran card rooms in Gardena, places where patrons might be lured in with a 25-cent steak.

He eventually relinquished control of six poker houses in Gardena to build Whiskey Pete’s in Primm. The area was renamed from State Line to Primm in 1996 after his death.

“When Primm was first developed, it was really a destination resort area for Southern Californians, people from the Los Angeles and Mojave areas,” Scott Butera, Affinity’s chief executive and president, said at a February meeting of the Nevada Gaming Commission.

The castle-shaped Whiskey Pete’s, which shuttered in December, opened in 1977, followed by Primm Valley in 1990 and Buffalo Bill’s in 1994.

All three enjoyed expansion and growth throughout the 2010s by utilizing low prices, gimmicks and attractions to lure guests.

Courtesy Primm Valley Casino Resorts

Each hosted the famed Bonnie & Clyde “Death Car,” the V-8 Ford riddled with more than 100 bullets in 1934. Whiskey Pete’s offered a 24-hour IHOP, and Californians and Nevadans visited Primm Valley’s 100-store outlet mall supported by shoppers bused into the mall for free or at discounted prices as a part of tours.

There was also Buffalo Bill’s Desperado, the tallest, fastest roller coaster in the world when it opened in 1994; it sent visitors screaming 209 feet above the freeway right outside the resort. A tram, now dusty and shuttered, connected all three resorts.

The Las Vegas Sun wrote in 2009 that Buffalo Bill’s also offered “$2 beers, $7 prime rib dinners and $25 shows” to guests who wanted a taste of old Las Vegas.

Buffalo Bill’s and its sister resorts closed in March 2020 when the pandemic hit, reopening between December 2022 and 2023. But they struggled to attract customers.

The Desperado roller coaster at Buffalo Bill’s Resort and Casino made its final run in Feburary 2020. (Bridget Bennett/For The Times)

A sign blocks an entrance to the Primm Mall in July. Once a popular shopping stop for travelers between Las Vegas and Southern California, the mall has seen a steep decline in recent years.

Affinity Gaming announced Buffalo Bill’s full-time closure in July, saying the resort would still host concerts and special events at its arena, with the casino, food and beverage services, and the hotel open during those times. Whiskey Pete’s was closed — at least temporarily — on Dec. 18. Affinity personnel asked the board on March 4 to approve an extended closure until Dec. 18, 2026, with the possibility of two six-month extensions.

The approved closure allows the resort to maintain its county gaming license while Whiskey Pete’s operates up to 40 slot machines at its adjacent gas station.

The company, which operates the casinos via a lease agreement with the Primm family, turned down requests to speak about its resorts or the future of Primm.

Gamblers inside Primm Valley Casino Resorts, the last casino standing, in July.

Not enough gamblers to go around

While other casinos in Nevada’s Clark County have cleaned up financially over the last 10 years, Primm’s have been — as UNLV’s Belarmino noted — on a slow slide.

In a letter to the Clark County Board of Commissioners, Erin Barnett, Affinity’s vice president and general counsel, wrote in October “that traffic at the state line has proved to be heavily weighted towards weekend activity and is insufficient to support three full-time casino properties.”

The story of Primm’s decline is directly tied to the rise of Southern California’s tribal casinos, according to Belarmino.

Yaamava’ Resort & Casino, run by the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, sits in Highland, about 200 miles from Primm but less than half that distance from downtown L.A.

The 7,000 slot machines at Yaamava’ make the casino the West Coast’s largest, with 4,000 more slots than any Vegas peers.

Once, Yaamava’ was much humbler than the Primm resorts, opening in 1986 as a bingo hall. But by 1994, the location expanded into a 100,000-square-foot casino. Yaamava’ completed its most recent $760-million expansion in 2021, adding a 17-floor hotel tower, three bars and about 1,700 new slots.

That casino’s growth mirrors the explosion of tribal gaming since California voters passed Proposition 1A in 2000, which allowed tribal casinos to operate slot machines and erased limits on card games.

Shortly after, Yaamava’ was one of several tribal casinos in San Bernardino and Riverside counties that declared an arms race with Nevada.

The tribal casinos are a pull for Southern Californians who might otherwise head to Primm, Affinity’s Butera acknowledged at February’s Gaming Commission meeting. “Now they have their own casinos,” he said, “quite large, nice casinos there.”

Still, Affinity is hoping a new airport planned for just north of Primm in the late 2030s and adjacent supporting businesses will spur a resurgence. Butera said at the February meeting that Primm was “in the process of doing a major repositioning.”

Primm 2.0 would have Primm Valley Hotel as its main resort, with national brands and new restaurant concepts and an improved truck stop travel center. There would also be a new $4-million marquee.

The vision is to restore Primm to a destination that Southern Californians traveling to Nevada would stop at, “get gas or recharge their car but also [have] something nice to eat, have a little fun at a casino and then move on.”

Signs alert any remaining passersby that this entrance at Primm Mall is closed. In July, the lone store in business was a thrift store.

Clothing time

It’s unclear if that would resuscitate Primm Valley’s 100-store outlet mall, an attraction that once extended Primm’s deals beyond cheap buffets and cocktails.

The Las Vegas Entertainment Guide wrote in December 2013 that Primm’s Prizm Outlets were “one of the top places to visit if you are visiting the Sin City and shopping is on your agenda.”

The 371,000-square-foot outlet mall, built in 1998, is attached to the Primm Valley Resort. Its retailers at one time included Neiman Marcus, Coach, American Eagle Outfitters, Fendi, Michael Kors and Kate Spade.

Las Vegas resident Lindsay Myer said the mall was a lure in its heyday.

“They had a jeans outlet and some good shopping,” said the 23-year-old as she stopped in Buffalo Bill’s before its closing in July. “Then the outlets closer to Vegas were built.”

Las Vegas North Premium Outlets, three miles from the Strip’s northern end, was built in 2003, with expansions completed in 2015. The South mall, near Harry Reid Airport, completed construction in 2011. They combined for more than 300 shops.

Meanwhile, more Primm storefronts became vacant.

By 2018, only 58 stores out of 111 total spots were operating. As of July, a thrift store was the only shop that remained.

Anna Barker and Chad Asindraza, both from Las Vegas, pose for a photo in front of the Buffalo Bill’s Resort and Casino sign.

For some, Primm just didn’t make sense

Scott Banks, a retired slot machine mechanic and salesman, said he never understood how Primm existed in the first place.

“I understand this is the first stop on your way through the desert to Las Vegas, but Vegas is only like 35 miles away,” said Banks, 65, a Sin City native. “The fact that people made that stop is something.”

Banks said he helped refurbish and update slot machines at Whiskey Pete’s in the mid-1980s, when it was undergoing one of its first expansions.

He was also a frequent visitor to Primm for its $1 hot dogs, the outlet mall and the roller coaster. When those amenities dropped away, so did he.

“Whiskey Pete’s, Primm, was an incredible gamble by the Primm family, and it worked, it worked for years,” he said. “That’s the way to look at it.”