New Delhi, June 14 -- PRIMM, Nev. - Forty-five miles south of the Las Vegas Strip, a small Nevada town built on the premise that California drivers cannot wait any longer to gamble came within weeks of permanent extinction. Then, at what amounted to the last possible moment, it got a reprieve.

The Primm family announced last week that it has reached an agreement with Terrible's - the Las Vegas-based company run by the Herbst family that operates casinos and Terrible Herbst gas stations across Nevada - to take over management of the Primm Valley Hotel-Casino and related properties along Interstate 15, averting a July 4 shutdown that had seemed all but certain as recently as a week before the deal was struck.

Cory Clemetson, grandson of P...