Circa Resort & Casino is opening up its top two floors for the first time, adding 49 new hotel rooms and suites to the Downtown Las Vegas tower on September 1 — just in time for the NFL season crush that regularly sells the property out. The rooms on floors 49 and 50, which Circa is branding its platinum floors, include upgraded standard king rooms, a studio suite, a one-bedroom suite with an option for a connected second room, and a two-bedroom Founders Entourage Suite built to sleep as many as 10 people.
The expansion caps a phased buildout strategy nearly six years in the making. Circa opened in 2020 with seven hotel-tower floors deliberately shelved for future development, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Circa co-owner and CEO Derek Stevens has treated the unfinished space as a chance to let real-world demand — rather than a pre-set blueprint — decide what got built. The resort had already added four floors of standard rooms in October 2024, bringing its count to 618 rooms before this latest addition, and the newest 49 rooms were part of the original phased development plan from the start.
A Sold-Out Weekend Streak Drove the Timing
Circa has been sold out every weekend for the last three years, the report notes, and Stevens said the property simply does not have enough hotel keys to meet demand. He expects a record-setting football season this year, and the new floors are timed to be ready ahead of it. Circa Sports has leaned into that seasonal surge before — Hoodline reported the sportsbook raised its guaranteed NFL contest prize pool to $30 million for the 2026 season, following a 2025 campaign in which it paid out a record $31.6 million across contests including the $20 million Circa Survivor, $6 million Circa Million, and $4 million Circa Grandissimo.
Stevens framed the expansion as part of a broader shift in what draws visitors to the city. He said Las Vegas is now a more organized experiential location, according to the Review-Journal, describing the city's evolution toward sports, concerts, conventions and other experiences as the backdrop for Circa's growth. That framing lines up with Downtown Las Vegas's gaming numbers: casinos in the area generated a record $951.2 million in gross gaming revenue in 2025, a 2.1% increase over 2024 that outpaced the flat performance of the Las Vegas Strip, according to data reported by SportsHandle.
Inside the Founders Entourage Suite
The new Founders Entourage Suite is designed for bachelor and bachelorette parties, large families and reunion celebrations. It includes two bedrooms, two full bathrooms and one half-bath, a large living room, a wet bar, multiple televisions, and Murphy beds to accommodate its 10-person capacity. Circa expects strong demand for the new inventory across all of its room types, from the upgraded standard kings to the single and double king-bed rooms also included in the platinum floors.
Even with floors 49 and 50 now complete, Circa still has one unfinished hotel-tower floor. The 15th floor has no immediate plans for conversion into guest rooms; instead, Circa uses that space for overflow during large-scale events or as indoor event space. The tower itself remains the tallest building in Downtown Las Vegas and the tallest structure north of the Strip, standing 35 stories and 458 feet tall.
Downtown's Uneven Recovery
The gaming revenue record downtown does not mean every property is thriving equally. Citywide, Las Vegas drew 38.5 million visitors in 2025 with average hotel occupancy of 80.3%, but Downtown Las Vegas trailed at 67.5% occupancy, per figures from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. That gap has shown up starkly at other Fremont Street properties — in March, the nearby Downtown Grand Hotel & Casino defaulted on a $90 million construction loan and was placed into court-ordered receivership, a story Hoodline covered in its report on the Fremont Street casino's financial collapse.
Circa's model has instead leaned on an adults-only approach that some downtown neighbors are now imitating. The resort launched in 2020 as Las Vegas's first strictly 21-and-over casino resort, requiring adult identification across its hotel, pool amphitheater and gaming floor — a strategy Stevens used to differentiate the property and raise service standards. The historic El Cortez Hotel & Casino followed suit with its own 21-and-over policy in 2022 and this month announced plans for an upscale steakhouse, Alex Prime, aimed at similar high-value adult spenders.
Circa was the first brand-new, ground-up resort-casino built in Downtown Las Vegas since 1980, rising on the site of the former Las Vegas Club, Mermaids Casino and Glitter Gulch strip club. Stevens and his brother Greg also own The D Las Vegas and the historic Golden Gate Hotel & Casino, rounding out a downtown gaming portfolio that Stevens built after first buying into the Golden Gate in 2008.
