Atlantic City will say goodbye tomorrow night to what’s left of the old Sands Casino. An implosion will bring down the 21-story hotel tower in just seconds. After a six minute fireworks show Thursday night, the Sands will be turned to dust.

By drilling holes into concrete columns and loading them with explosives, demolition crews were preparing to implode the Sands casino. Tourists were taking pictures Tuesday of the casino because soon it will be gone forever.

At 9:30 p.m. Thursday, experts said 350 pounds of dynamite will turn the 21-story hotel tower into 30,000 tons of rubble in just about 18 seconds. „We’re going to let gravity take the building down. All we want to do is disrupt the columns’ ability to support the building and then allow it to fail,“ Jim Santoro, of Controlled Demolition, said.

The legendary Sands closed last November. The tiny casino’s implosion will make way for a massive USD 1.5 billion mega-gaming resort Pinnacle Atlantic City plans to build there and open in 2011. „It’s to give honor to the Sands that’ll close it’s book that evening,“ Kim Townsend, Pinnacle Atlantic City CEO, said.

Explosives have brought down Las Vegas casinos before. But this implosion marks the first time an Atlantic City gaming hall is going out with such a bang.