Golden Entertainment earlier this year named Skylar Dice senior vice president and general manager for the Strat.
He previously served as vice president and assistant general manager at the property.
Vegas Inc sat down with Dice, who has more than two decades of experience in the gaming industry, to learn more about his plans and what visitors to the longtime Strip staple can expect.
Skylar Dice
What are you excited about in this new role at the Strat?
I’m going to be focusing on improving the overall service of the property. That’s what we’re looking forward to this coming year, is having a consistent identity with the service. That’s something that’s important for the property. And a lot of it just speaks to who we are as a property and who Golden Entertainment is as a company. We focus on being real, being approachable to our guests, consistent in the offerings we have. And we know that we’re the tallest observation tower in the U.S., so we know there’s a lot of eyes that come to this property. We want to give them a great experience once they get here.
There have been some extensive changes to the Strat over the past couple of years. Can you talk about what you think sets it apart?
One of my favorite things to do is to have someone who has not been to this property for quite some time, meeting them at the front entrance and walking them through the property, and just seeing the look on their face, because they don’t expect what they come in and see, with the renovations that we’ve done to the casino floor, the new restaurants that we’ve added—that’s exciting to see.
We’ve got great team members who have been here for many years, and they’re really bought into the service culture that we’re putting in place here. There are new shows that we have on property as well. We’ve got Rouge for our late show, Iluminate, and Terry Fator joined the property for his show earlier this year. There’s a lot of things to
be excited about here.
There’s been a lot of changes on the Strip in the past few years. With the landscape evolving, how do resorts have to respond?
When I came on property, (we were) just coming out of the pandemic. So just to see the evolution, it’s been incredible. And yeah, having Resorts World (and) Fontainebleau open on the north end of the Strip—Sahara is right down the street from us, as well—we’re starting to see a lot of movement on the north end of the Strip, and that’s fun to see because of the unique situation that we have, positioned as the gateway to the Arts District. So, we’ve got the culmination of the north side of the Strip and the Arts District coming together right at our property. It’s just fun to see the improvement in the local area and being part of the business owners in the community who really care about this neighborhood and are helping make this be a great part of the Strip again.
What plans are there for the future of the Strat?
Our biggest current focus is bringing more special events and activations to the property. We hosted our second annual Pink Party for (National Finals Rodeo) up in the tower. That was a great experience.
We know we have a unique building that draws people here. So, it’s really finding new, unique ways to activate this property. We had our emo night, where we had Hawthorne Heights and a few other bands heading into the When We Were Young weekend. So really finding unique, different ways to activate different assets we have at the property. We’re excited to have that, along with our Chinese New Year celebration with the Lohan School of Shaolin, the Scale the Strat through the American Lung Association. There are so many cool activations that we have.
As gaming, and particularly sports betting, continues to grow outside of Las Vegas, how do you see it affecting attraction to Strip resorts?
The unique thing about Las Vegas is, even when you do have this widespread proliferation of sports betting throughout the country, (it) still becomes the premier destination for that.
We had a big group here that came in from a jurisdiction that (has) sports betting. But they come here because this is the destination. They want to get a group together. They’re here for a birthday party. That’s the unique angle that Las Vegas has going for it, is that, even with sports betting in some of these other places, it’s still bringing awareness and this really becomes the area where everyone wants to come for their big occasion. Growing the gaming market is good overall. And that’s what we’re seeing from it.
What would you want someone to know about why they should visit the Strat?
We’ve got a ton of different great options, whether it be the great shows, the SkyJump attraction, the Big Shot at the top.
These restaurants, between Top of the World, Chi Asian Kitchen, PT’s … there’s so much to do here. And the level of service that you’re going to get is really personalized. We’re small enough to be able to give that feeling of belongingness to our guests.
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This story originally appeared in Las Vegas Weekly.