The Aladdin Hotel - a Las Vegas icon with a checkered past - was closing Tuesday to make way for a newer, bigger $1.2 billion Aladdin resort.

The Aladdin's 17-story tower is to be imploded next year, probably in February. Five major Las Vegas hotels - the Dunes, Landmark, Sands and Hacienda - have been imploded in the past four years.Linked in its early years to Midwest mob figures and co-owned briefly by singer Wayne Newton, the Aladdin has been cursed by financial problems.

Elvis and Priscilla Presley were married there in 1967.

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Replacing the tower will be a 2,600-room Aladdin, with 450,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space and another 1,000-room music-themed hotel nearby.

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