Allen, Hard Rock ready to take on Las Vegas

From humble beginnings working at a small hometown restaurant to leading one of the world’s most recognizable leisure and entertainment brands, Jim Allen has seen — and done — a lot over a nearly five-decade career in the hospitality industry.

When the 64-year-old Allen is inducted into the Gaming Hall of Fame during an invitation-only ceremony this week at the 2024 Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas, it will not be the first career accolade bestowed upon him. But the gravity of the recognition is not lost on Allen.

“It’s a very humbling call,” Allen said of his reaction to learning he would be joining elite company in the hall, including his fellow class of ’24 inductees, Alan Feldman and Debi Nutton. “You work hard in the industry for all these years and you just kind of reminisce and think ‘How did it progress to this?’”

As chairman of Hard Rock International and chief executive officer of Seminole Gaming, Allen has his eyes set on the Strip, where the Hard Rock Hotel and Guitar Hotel are under construction. The casino resort — which is being built on the grounds formerly occupied by the Mirage hotel-casino — is tentatively scheduled to open sometime in 2027.

Allen’s roots

As a teen, Allen took a job at a local eatery in Northfield, New Jersey, a mainland suburb of Atlantic City. Shortly after New Jersey’s first casino opened in 1978, he found work in a kitchen at Bally’s Park Place. He took classes at a nearby community college when not working and eventually completed a management training course, which helped propel him to higher-ranking roles in the industry, first for the Atlantic City Hilton and later for the Trump Organization.

After helping open a handful of casinos in Colorado and another in New Orleans, Allen began working for South African businessman Sol Kerzner, who he calls a “great mentor.” Kerzner’s Sun International endeavors included the Mohegan Sun casino-hotel in Connecticut, Atlantis Paradise Island and the Ocean Club in the Bahamas, and the former Desert Inn in Las Vegas, all of which were, at one point or another, under Allen’s purview.

Since 2001, Allen has led the Seminole Tribe of Florida’s efforts to become a major player in the casino and gaming world. The Seminole Tribe is widely credited with operating the first tribal-owned gambling establishment in the United States, a high-stakes bingo parlor in Fort Lauderdale, which took its first bet in 1979.

Allen says the Seminole’s rise to the upper echelon of the casino industry was not a straight path. Those moments, whether through adversity or victory, have shaped how he defines his career.

“I sincerely do not have one specific moment (that stands out) because if we look at the last 24 years with Seminole (Gaming), there’s been so many milestones, or the odds were stacked against us and we had so many naysayers,” he said. “There’s been many, many different challenges,” that the company has overcome.

Hard Rock takes over the Mirage

Allen is already optimistic about the property’s potential, even as the project is still in the design and development phase. While understanding that Las Vegas is a unique market compared to anywhere else Hard Rock presently does business, Allen said the company is “looking forward to navigating down that path.”

“I think we always go into a market trying to create a product that is at the highest level,” Allen said. “I think going into Las Vegas, we want to create a product that is in the highest, upscale category of the market, and then hopefully hire the best employees to deliver an experience that will be in the top tier of both revenue and EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) producers in the city. That is always our goal. And, very humbly, every market we’ve gone into, we have done that.”

Allen likens his business approach to “playing chess, not checkers.”

“You need to be thinking five, six, 10 moves ahead at all times. And, more importantly, you never need to make your strategy based upon what you want. You need to understand first what the other person or company or situation may want,” he said. “Once you understand what they want, then you can develop your strategy.”

David Danzis can be contacted at ddanzis@reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0378. Follow AC2Vegas_Danzis on X.