"The way to win money in a casino is to own one"

Can you feel the love? Don't you just want to invite this 'nice guy' into your community to plunder and pillage?

Let's ignore that when his father died, Steve Wynn paid off his Gambling Debts because his Dad was a Gambling Addict, yet those are the ones who enrich the younger Mr. Wynn.

The small town of Palmer, MA appointed the Palmer Casino Study Committee, a group of residents with no pre-conceived notions, that determined the annual cost to host a Slot Barn would be $18 MILLION to $39 MILLION, not including undetermined costs to bring water from the Quabbin.

Those are merely the town's costs, not including the community degradation, the costs of Gambling Addiction, increased crime, family destruction, increased personal bankruptcies, and the Gambling Industry's DIRTY LITTLE SECRET - SUICIDE from Gambling Addiction. [Check out the statistics of Las Vegas.]

As much as 90% of a Slot Barn's profits come from 10% of its patrons.

[You can provide an elegant name, cover it with expensive awnings and lavish furnishings, it's still a Slot Barn whose sole purpose is to suck discretionary income from the local economy, reminiscent of the Wizard.]

Gambling is poor public policy by lazy lawmakers devoid of ideas.

Wynn faces stiff odds
BY RICK FOSTER SUN CHRONICLE STAFFSunday, April 1, 2012
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Vegas casino magnate used to getting his way
Steve Wynn was a mere 10 years old when he first spied the city of his dreams: Las Vegas.

Wynn, the son of an East Coast bingo hall promoter with a love for the craps tables, was fascinated by what he saw beginning to take root in a desert town where sagebrush was about as common as gamblers' dreams of hitting it big.

His father, Michael Wynn, had come to Vegas in 1952 with dreams of putting a bingo parlor in one of the local casinos, but things didn't work out.

On one of his stays, the younger Wynn told an interviewer in 1983, his dad "used to go to bed with me, and then sneak out at night and shoot the dice at the Flamingo and the Sands."

The 70-year-old Wynn, who now proposes to build a $1 billion resort casino in Foxboro on Route 1 land owned by the Kraft Group, inherited all of his father's affection for Vegas and its high rollers, save one: He doesn't like to gamble. "The way to win money in a casino is to own one," Wynn has sometimes been quoted.

He's certainly followed his own advice.

Known today as a tycoon who ranks 491 on Forbes' list of the world's billionaires, the Connecticut-born Wynn took over the family's bingo business following his father's death in the early 1960s.

Over the years, he parlayed his business savvy, friendships and connections, first into a small stake in a foundering Vegas casino, and eventually into a legacy of prosperous hotels and gambling houses stretching from America's East Coast to Macao. Along the way, Wynn garnered much of the credit for re-imagining Las Vegas, and casino gambling, in general - transforming the images of both from guilty pleasures with implied Mob overtones to one of family amusement and outrageous spectacle.

Hotels featuring erupting volcanos or built in the shape of Egyptian pyramids and Venetian palaces in the erstwhile Sin City add to the impression of a slightly naughtier version of Disneyland, whose catchphrase is "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."

Wynn also helped to shift the focus of the hotel-casino trade from dice to divas by cultivating top stars like Diana Ross and Frank Sinatra for his showrooms. Wynn and Sinatra even appeared together in a series of commercials for his Atlantic City hotel, with Wynn playing the straight man to a clowning Chairman of the Board.

Wynn also knows the finer things.

Although afflicted with retinitis pigmentosa, a disease that is gradually stealing his eyesight, Wynn is a well known art collector who once bumped into a Picasso he owns, putting a hole in the canvas. He's since had the painting restored.

But Wynn's path hasn't always been easy.

In the '60s, Wynn invested in a small stake in Las Vegas' Frontier Hotel, where he became the slot manager. However, some of the existing investors turned out to have reputed connections to the Detroit mob.

Wynn was never accused of any wrongdoing in connection with the affair, but ended up selling out when the hotel was bought by reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes.

Wynn made a complete recovery, investing in and eventually becoming chairman of the historic Golden Nugget. It was just the beginning of a legendary career that continues to unfold.

In December 2011, Wynn's announcement, along with New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft, that he planned to develop a resort casino on Kraft land across from Gillette Stadium generated a tidal wave of media attention, followed by loud opposition from many Foxboro residents.

It wouldn't be the first time that Wynn proposals have met a less than inviting response.

In the 1990s, Wynn was among casino developers eyeing expanded gambling possibilities in Connecticut. Wynn broached proposals for luxury casinos first in Hartford and later in Bridgeport. Donald Trump was also among developers who saw potential in Connecticut gambling.

But the Meshantucket Pequot Nation, the tribe that opened Foxwoods, got the nod as the preferred developer, said state Rep. Steve Dargan, D-West Haven.

Ultimately, no urban casino was ever built.

"It was a huge deal here," recalled Hartford Courant columnist Rick Green. "There was intense lobbying on both sides."

According to news reports at the time, casino proponents spent more than $1 million in 1993 promoting expanded gaming in the form of mailings, brochures and broadcast commercials.

It didn't work.

It wasn't so much Wynn or any other single developer, Green said. The idea of expanding gambling into major cities never was fully accepted by the state's politicians, and found determined opposition among some residents.

Wynn fared no better in Philadelphia.

In 2010, Wynn announced an agreement to partner with other investors to develop a large casino on the Philly waterfront. The partnership would have included the Meshantucket Pequots, the original proponents of the project.

Only two months later, Wynn Resorts announced it was pulling out of the project, which would have cost an estimated $600 million and contained 3,000 slot machines.

A brief press release said the deal was not the right fit.

But with rare exception, Steve Wynn's casino and hotel ventures have met with success well beyond the dreams of most entrepreneurs.

Educated at private schools and the University of Pennsylvania, Wynn was well prepared to take on the business community when he arrived in Las Vegas, and was not deterred by competition or temporary setbacks.

After his short tenure at the Frontier, he bounced back with help from Vegas banker E. Parry Thomas, becoming chairman of the Golden Nugget at age 31.

Flush with success, he doubled down by opening a Golden Nugget in Atlantic City, where casino gambling had been newly legalized.

By the late 1980s, Wynn sold out to Bally's for a reported $440 million. But Wynn wasn't about to cash in and retire to the golf course.

Instead, he focused on plans for a new resort of his own invention: Las Vegas' 3,000-room Mirage, which featured an erupting volcano, imported fabrics on the furniture and unparalleled luxury throughout.

It was a huge hit.

Throughout his career, friends and employees say, Wynn has tended to be a detail guy who delves into particulars like the design of one of his hotel restaurants or choosing the imported stone used in a facade.

"He's a very honest guy who's dedicated to quality and mindful of the environment," said Frank Fahrenkopf, president and CEO of the American Gaming Association and former chairman of the Republican National Committee who has known Wynn for years.

But he can also be forceful to the point of testiness, something for which Wynn has developed something of a reputation.

In the 1980s, Wynn threatened to choke TV reporter Meredith Viera if a certain quote didn't end up in her final story. Then, he walked out of an interview when she brought up the subject of money laundering.

In a recent DVD distributed to 7,000 Foxboro homes, Wynn was solicitous and soft-spoken as he explained the details of his proposed Route 1 casino complex.

"He's a builder," said University of Nevada Las Vegas professor Steve Schwartz of the UNLV Center for Gaming Research. "He has a definite vision of what he wants to do. When people like that find that things don't to their way, they can get frustrated."

But as a businessman and creative visionary, Schwartz said, Wynn combines financial talent with an appreciation for the finer things needed to make his projects work.

"He's equally adept at both the financial aspects and the creative side," Schwartz said.

An employee at one of his hotels recently told a reporter how the billionaire businessman met with with employees directly to discuss how a particular part of the hotel should be rearranged.

Sparing neither details, nor dollars, Wynn has managed to make just about everything he builds sparkle.

In 1998, Wynn opened the spectacular Bellagio, its Italianate walls studded with masterpiece artworks collected by the casino entrepreneur, himself. He also opened a high-end resort casino in Biloxi, Miss.

Wynn ended up selling his Mirage Inc. gaming empire to MGM Grand for $4.4 billion in what has been described as a hostile takeover.

But, determined to remain a power in Las Vegas gambling, he bought the outdated Desert Inn. Wynn replaced the hotel with his signature Wynn Las Vegas, a glittering structure with all the patented Wynn luxury touches.

In 2008, he added the Encore, which matched the Wynn Las Vegas dazzle-for-dazzle.

Wynn Resorts was the awarded the highest rank in Fortune Magazine's 2012 Most Admired Companies list in the hotel, casino, resort category.

But Wynn's biggest gamble - and potentially his biggest payoff - came in recognizing the potential of gaming in Macau, a former Portuguese colony and now a Chinese special administrative region.

It's a place where pleasure, gambling and tourism are heavily promoted.

Wynn opened the Wynn Macau in 2006 while already planning a second casino.

There's no doubt that Wynn is delighted with the way things are going so far.

Even while blasting President Barack Obama's policies as "socialist" in a July 2011 conference call with financial analysts, he bubbled over with praise for his communist hosts.

"We find the political environment, the regulatory environment, the human resource environment that we're in to be absolutely delicious," Wynn said, according to a transcript published by the website Seeking Alpha.

As occurred when he helped to transform Las Vegas in the 1980s, recent events in China have made Wynn seem like something of an oracle.

Gaming hasn't just prospered in Macau, it's exploded.

According published figures, the take increased by a whopping 42 percent in 2011, alone, with the total exceeding $33 billion. That's more than five times the combined revenue of all gaming revenue generated on the Las Vegas Strip.

Macau contributes about three-quarters of Wynn Resorts' revenue, according to the Reuters news service.

Wynn Resorts' fortunes have skyrocketed right along with the expansion of gaming in Asia. According to the company's latest financial report, revenues jumped from $4.1 billion in 2010 to $5.2 million last year. Net income grew nearly fourfold from $160 million to $613 million.

But Wynn's triumphs haven't come without a fight - several of them, in fact.

In 1995, Wynn sued an author and publisher over an unauthorized biography because of a catalog listing for the book that allegedly implied connections with organized crime.

Wynn won a $3.1 million judgment against publisher Lyle Stuart, but the decision was later overturned by the Nevada Supreme Court.

Wynn was also involved in a legal battle with the late Clark County Sheriff John T. Moran during the 1990s, prompted by the sheriff's attempts to bar Wynn associate Charles Myerson from a key Vegas casino employee license.

Wynn sued and Moran eventually backed down, conceding in a news release that no unsuitable connections existed between Mirage Resorts and organized crime, according to Moran's obituary in the Las Vegas Review Journal.

The Las Vegas casino king is currently embroiled in even more bitter litigation involving friend and former partner Kazuo Okada.

Wynn and Okada, who owned a 20 percent stake in Wynn's company, went head-to-head after Okada started poking his nose into a $135 million gift from Wynn Resorts Macau to the University of Macau.

Wynn Resorts then forcibly redeemed Okada's shares at a steep discount after commissioning an investigation of Okada's dealings with Philippines gaming officials.

Okada is planning a casino in the Philippines that, once finished, theoretically would be in a position to compete with Wynn Macao for high-rolling Asian gamblers.

Both sides are pressing ahead with lawsuits.

Wynn faces the danger of potential piling on by shareholder suits, like the one filed recently by a Louisiana public employees pension fund charging the company's directors with actions injurious to the company, including the "waste of corporate assets."

That lawsuit also raises the question of a possible violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act because of the University of Macau gift.

A spokeswoman for Wynn Resorts said the company had no comment.

Barron's, the financial newspaper, also dropped Wynn from its list of Top 30 corporate CEOs, citing the casino boss' acrimonious dealings with Okada.

The legal bickering so far hasn't dealt a bad hand to publicly traded Wynn Resorts stock, which has continued to rise, even as lawyers traded piles of legal documents.

While the Wynn empire was built around flashiness, Wynn and his supporters have taken pains to point out that a proposed Foxboro resort casino would be more subdued. Its lodge-style exterior, they say, would be in keeping with the project's New England surroundings.

Wynn said in the DVD to Foxboro residents that only a small portion of the resort would house a casino, and it would be isolated from dining facilities and other amenities.

With all his accomplishments, Wynn could be facing one of his most difficult challenges in trying to locate his destination resort in Foxboro.

Not only must Wynn overcome stiff competition to be awarded one of Massachusetts' three coveted casino licenses, his project would have to win approval from both Foxboro town meeting and a town-wide referendum in a community convulsed by controversy over casino gambling.

But according to the American Gaming Association's Fahrenkopf, one of the words that best describes his friend Wynn is "persistent."

If anyone thinks Steve Wynn is apt to fold his cards and walk away from a business deal he truly believes in, gaming industry observers have only four words of advice:

Don't bet on it.