Stephen WynnSpeaker and Booking Agent Information

Wynn was able to turn his gains from a land purchase in the early 1970s (including two established titans of the Las Vegas casino sector, Howard Hughes and Caesars Palace) into a majority position in the Golden Nugget Las Vegas, a dusty downtown casino.

Wynn rebuilt, remodeled, and extended the Golden Nugget with great success, luring a new affluent clientele to downtown Las Vegas in the process. Wynn has already bought stakes in a number of existing casinos. The Mirage, his first big Strip casino, set a new benchmark for grandeur and opulence, with building expenses to match.

The Mirage included an indoor forest and an outdoor "volcano," and it was a huge success because to high-quality room appointments and an emphasis on service. The Mirage was his first casino project in which he was engaged in the design and construction.

Because of its exorbitant cost and emphasis on luxury, it was deemed a hazardous investment by Las Vegas standards at the time. It was financed partly with junk bonds issued by Michael Milken. It was a huge success, and it cemented Wynn's place in Las Vegas history.

In the later Bellagio resort, Wynn expanded on his concept of the luxury casino by including an artificial lake, indoor conservatory, and an art gallery in which Wynn displayed museum-quality artworks, as well as branches of high-end boutiques and restaurants located in Paris, San Francisco, or New York.

Mirage Resorts, Inc., Wynn's firm, established casino/hotels in different parts of the United States. Mirage Resorts was acquired by MGM Grand Inc. in 2000, becoming MGM Mirage.

With the proceeds from that transaction and his capacity to arrange ever-increasing financing, Wynn built his most costly property yet, the Wynn Las Vegas, which opened on April 28, 2005, on the former site of the Desert Inn. Wynn became a billionaire in 2004, when his net worth increased to $1.3 billion, according to the Forbes 400 list.

[1] In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Wynn owned The Golden Nugget in Atlantic City. The casino was a huge success, and he rewarded his staff with new automobiles from an Atlantic City Honda dealership. Due to disagreements with New Jersey gambling authorities, Wynn sold The Golden Nugget to Bally Entertainment, Incorporated.

Wynn has a substantial art collection, which is on exhibit in Wynn Las Vegas. Paintings by Picasso, Vermeer, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Warhol, and Matisse are included. In 1993, his daughter Kevyn was abducted [2]. The developer paid a $1.45 million ransom for her safe release, and the kidnappers were apprehended after one of them purchased a Ferrari in Newport Beach.

(This story was alluded to in the Ocean's Eleven remake.) Wynn is afflicted with retinitis pigmentosa.