Steve Wynn (developer)
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Stephen Alan Wynn (born January 27, 1942 in New Haven, Connecticut) is a casino resort developer. He is credited with spearheading the dramatic expansion of Las Vegas, Nevada in the 1990s.
Wynn's father, who ran a string of bingo parlors in the eastern United States, died shortly before Wynn graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1963. Wynn took over running the family's bingo operation in Maryland. He did well enough at it to accumulate the money to buy a small stake in the Frontier Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, where he and his wife, Elaine, moved in 1967.
Wynn managed to parlay his profits from a land deal in the early 1970s (the deal involved two established titans of the Las Vegas casino business, Howard Hughes and Caesars Palace) into a controlling interest in a dusty downtown casino, the Golden Nugget Las Vegas. Wynn renovated, revamped and expanded the Golden Nugget with enormous success, in the process attracting a new upscale clientele to downtown Las Vegas.
His first major Strip casino, The Mirage, set a new standard for size and lavishness, with construction costs to match. Financed largely with junk bonds issued by Michael Milken, the Mirage featured an indoor forest and an outdoor "volcano," and with high quality room appointments and an emphasis on service, the Mirage was another great success. Wynn expanded further on his concept of the luxury casino in the later Bellagio resort, including an artificial lake, indoor conservatory and an art gallery in which Wynn displayed museum-quality artworks, and branches of high-end boutiques and restaurants located in Paris, San Francisco or New York.
Wynn's company, Mirage Resorts, Inc., also developed casino/hotels in other locations around the United States.
Mirage Resorts was sold to MGM Grand Inc. in 2000, to form MGM Mirage. With the money he made on that deal, and with his ability to secure ever-greater financing, Wynn built a new resort, his largest yet, the Wynn Las Vegas, which opened on the former site of the Desert Inn on April 28, 2005.
According to the Forbes 400 listing, Wynn became a billionaire in 2004, when his net worth doubled, to $1.3 billion. [1] (http://finance.myway.com/jsp/nw/nwdt_rt.jsp?section=news&feed=ap&src=601&news_id=ap-d859pc0o0&date=20040923)
External links
- Article about Steve Wynn (http://www.cigaraficionado.com/Cigar/CA_Archives/CA_Show_Article/0,2322,1244,00.html)
- The official site of Wynn Las Vegas (http://www.wynnlasvegas.com)
- "High Demands, High Rewards" (http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2005/Feb-13-Sun-2005/news/25807039.html) - Las Vegas Review-Journal article about Wynn as a boss, February 13, 2005
- Wynn's One-Armed Bandits Exceeding Expectations (http://www.antandsons.com/2005_06_01_antandsons_archive.html)