Terrible’s Gets a Better Name, Silver Sevens Hotel & Casino

Just east of The Strip is a smallish (at least by Vegas standards) casino, formerly called Terrible’s.

How did a casino, or any business for that matter, get a name like Terrible’s? Well, the casino was opened by a family that also owned a chain of gas stations. The family’s name is Herbst. The family thought to themselves, “How can we make the name Herbst even less appealing? Wait, Terrible Herbst. Let’s go with that!”

Terrible’s Hotel and Casino opened, after a renovation of the Continental (which originally opened in 1981), in December of 2000. Suddenly, there were cowboys everywhere.

Time for you to retire, padner.
Time for you to retire, partner.

Following an 18-month renovation, costing upwards of “this blog does not do research,” the operators of Terrible’s (Affinity Gaming, as if you care) decided it was time to start anew, including giving the hotel a new name, Silver Sevens. The new name became official July 1, 2013.

All right, it was a $7 million renovation. You’re such a stickler for details.

Silver Seven's new marquee thingy.
Silver Seven’s new marquee thingy.

Representatives of the company say they chose the name because of the “vintage feel.” It should be noted, though, that Nevada is the “Silver State.” Sevens, of course, are common in casinos, from being a great come-out roll in craps to playing a prominent part in slot machine culture, including being featured on what our grandmother considered the greatest machine of all time, Blazing Sevens.

It’s also interesting that there are Seven Lucky Gods (or Seven Gods of Fortune) in Japanese culture. We’re also pretty sure the folks at Affinity Gaming considered the fact seven is the lowest natural number that cannot be represented as the sum of the squares of three integers. Because everybody knows that, right?

Anyhoo, just about all traces of the former Terrible’s are gone, and we grabbed a pic of the casino’s new chips, just for posterity.

Casino chips don't stay this clean for long, trust us.
Casino chips don’t stay this clean for long, trust us.

So, what happened to the Terrible’s cowboy sign? We hear it was donated to the Neon Museum, sort of the Las Vegas version of Boot Hill.

Stop by Silver Sevens and help break in the chips if you get a chance. And don’t miss the newly-named Sterling Spoon Cafe. You’ll be pleasantly surprised by the quality of the food and the lowness of the prices.