ands Casino Hotel was demolished Thursday night. It took less than 20 seconds for the 21-story, 500-room tower to come crashing to the ground shortly after 9:30 p.m. in the first implosion of an East Coast casino. The demolition makes way for a mega-casino to be built on the Sands site by Pinnacle Entertainment at an estimated cost of USD 1.5 billion to USD 2 billion. The as-yet unnamed complex is to open in late 2011 or early 2012.

Atlantic City, New Jersey - Everything about the new casino that's going to replace the former Sands Casino Hotel is designed to be Vegas-style , right down to the demolition of its predecessor. Old casinos in Las Vegas are routinely brought down with explosives in a choreographed spectacle that draws thousands of onlookers. Next month, Atlantic City will see its first casino implosion , complete with a world-famous Grucci fireworks display and laser light show to serve notice that not everything that happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.