Sunshine Minting Hits the Jackpot in Southern Nevada

Not too long ago, the ‘clink, clink, clink’ of someone winning a jackpot was a common sound on the Las Vegas Strip.

And while coins may have been replaced by paper tickets at casinos, cash is still king for many, with a recent survey finding 67% of Americans prefer cash for in-store purchases.

That’s good news for Henderson company Sunshine Minting, the world’s leading supplier of silver and gold products and a full-service previous metals minting facility. The company produces large volumes of high-quality blanks, coins, bars, and medallions.

“Our customers include governments, financial institutions, corporations, and private groups,” says Tom Power, President & CEO of Sunshine Minting. “We provide semi or fully finished coins to five sovereign governments, including the U.S. Mint.”

The company, which was originally headquartered in Idaho, expanded into the Las Vegas region in 2009 when they acquired a competitor and opened a small facility. Growth led to a larger building in Henderson in 2013, and within a few more years, when the company began to run out of space at their Idaho facility, they started looking at other options.

“We had land to expand our Idaho facility, but we were having issues finding workers,” says Powers. “When we had opened our Las Vegas facility in 2009, the caliber of people we were able to hire and how easy it was to hire them, we decided our best opportunity was to look at Las Vegas to expand.”

The company decided to consolidate most operations at both the Idaho and Nevada facilities and looked at Reno and other western states to find the best fit. In the end, company officials say it just made sense to move the bulk of operations to Southern Nevada.

“Our decision was mainly about the availability of the workforce, and the ease of transport logistics, considering there is a silver supplier in Salt Lake City,” says Powers. “It’s just overall a great central location, and the state has a business-friendly tax environment.”

The company moved into their current location in east Henderson in 2019. The 142,000 square foot facility is Sunshine Minting’s flagship operation, housing corporate, accounting, sales and marketing, and manufacturing operations. The facility also contains a state-of-the-art design facility, as well as a modern machine and tool shop and quality assurance lab.

“Our business is a very capital equipment intensive business,” says Powers. “Our largest stamping press weighs 70,000 pounds.”

Sunshine Minting connected with the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance in 2017 for assistance with applying for state tax incentives to help mitigate the costs associated with consolidating the Idaho and Southern Nevada operations. LVGEA was happy to help the company expand its footprint in the market.

“LVGEA works not only to grow Southern Nevada’s economy, but also to help diversify it,” says Perry Ursem, Senior Vice President of Business Development at LVGEA. “Sunshine Minting checks all the diversification boxes. When you think about it, it makes sense for a minting company to find success in an economy that revolves around money. We’re excited to share this proudly made-in-Nevada product with the rest of the world.”

The company currently has around 175 employees at its Henderson facility, including skilled machine operators, tool and dime makers, chemists, engineers, and welders, and ships more than 3 million ounces of precious metals every month, with 95% of that being silver.

“Nevada is the Silver State, so it just makes sense for us to be here,” says Power.

To learn more about how LVGEA can help you locate or grow your business in the Las Vegas region, connect with our Business Development team.