Wynn Vegas History

“If you’re good at what you do, it’s a game of skill, not chance.” Success Magazine 2014. Steve Wynn moved to Las Vegas in 1967 and invested in the Frontier Hotel. Less than a year later he sold the Frontier to billionaire Howard Hughes. Wynn has said he made no money on the deal. The Golden Nugget had one of the most desirable locations on Fremont Street . In 1972 Wynn and a group of investors bought enough stock to get elected to the board of directors and eventually take control. By August 1973 Wynn ran the company, and in one year he increased the pre-tax profits from $1.1 million to $4.2 million. He used Golden Nugget profits to buy an aging hotel in Atlantic City, where gambling had just become legal. Wynn tore it down, and by 1980 had built another Golden Nugget with 506 rooms. By 1984 his net worth was estimated at $100 million. Wynn then sold the Nugget’s Atlantic City property for $440 million, plowing part of the money into building The Mirage. It opened in November 1989, with a published price tag of $630 million. It was soon followed by the construction of Treasure Island. Bellagio was Steve Wynn’s next move. The 1998 opening of the 3,000-room Bellagio and its $1.6 billion price tag made it the most expensive resort ever built at the time. In 2000, Wynn sold his company, Mirage Resorts, to MGM Grand Inc. However Steve Wynn wasn’t leaving Las Vegas. Wynn Las Vegas opened April, 2005 on the site of the former Desert Inn Hotel. Wynn Las Vegas broke records with a $2.7 billion construction price tag. The Wynn and sister property Encore built in 2008 have more than 4700 rooms. Steve Wynn’s next move: major investments in Macau. Wynn Macau was completed in 2006, followed by Wynn Palace which opened in 2016. The casino operator plans to start construction of Paradise Park, which includes a 47-story, 1,500-room hotel, on the site of the Wynn Golf Course in early 2018. In January 2018 Wynn announced plans to build Wynn West, a 2,000-3,000-room property on the 38-acre Alon site that was purchased on Dec. 13 for $336 million. Wynn said he wants to push ahead with development on his undeveloped land because he expects Las Vegas will boom over the next 20 years as tax breaks stimulate an “economic renaissance.”