Casino executive puts a face on gambling

Lisa Snedeker

Saturday, Jan. 27, 2001 | 9:59 a.m.

LAS VEGAS - If Terry Lanni were still in politics, he might be president. Instead the executive chairman of MGM Mirage has become the figure who represents the nation's gambling industry.

"Through his service on the gaming commission he became the face of our industry to the nation," said Frank Fahrenkopf, president of the American Gaming Association.

The 57-year-old recently was inducted into the American Gaming Association's Hall of Fame and he received a lifetime achievement award at this month's American Gaming Summit.

So how did a former newspaper carrier for the Los Angeles Times end up at the helm of one of the nation's most powerful and respected casino companies?

His gambling career oddly enough began at end of the Gerald Ford campaign trail. If Ford had won his bid for the presidency in 1976, Lanni said he might still be in politics.

"I did advance for President Ford west of the Mississippi," he said. "I might note we only lost two states - Texas and Hawaii. If my counterpart had done as well in the East, I wouldn't be in this business."

Instead he chose to enter the casino business, figuring there would be less competition in an industry long equated with mobsters and illegal bookmakers.

The clean-cut executive was the lone gambling industry member on the National Gambling Impact Study Commission, which from 1998-99 conducted a congressionally mandated examination of the economic and social impacts of gambling in the United States.

The gaming industry is perceived by most through a set of stereotypes as hustlers and sharpies, said John Wilhelm, a fellow commissioner and national president of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union, parent of Culinary Union, which represents some 45,000 hotel workers in Las Vegas.

"Terry by his demeanor and his character and his thoughtfulness personifies the opposite of those stereotypes," Wilhelm said.

Lanni is credited with orchestrating the biggest transaction in gambling industry history. He was instrumental in negotiating MGM Grand's $6.4 billion acquisition of Mirage Resorts Inc. last year, giving the combined companies 18 properties and about 1,000 acres of land for development in Nevada, New Jersey and Mississippi.

It also gave MGM the prestige of having several luxury Strip resorts, including Mirage and Bellagio to go along with its MGM Grand flagship as it competes with industry giant Park Place Entertainment Corp.

"I don't think it's a matter of being the biggest," Lanni said. "We would argue that we are the best."

The son of a textile manufacturer, Lanni went to private schools in Beverly Hills, Calif. He majored in speech and general management at the University of Southern California, where he also earned a master's degree in finance.

After running the family's textile firm until his father died, Lanni took a position as chief financial officer with Republic Corp., a multinational conglomerate based in Southern California. He left Republic in 1976 to work on President Ford's campaign.

An executive search brought him to Caesars World as chief financial officer and in his two decades in the gambling industry he has held management positions in Las Vegas, Atlantic City and Lake Tahoe.

During his 18-year tenure as a senior executive with Caesars World, now part of Park Place, Lanni helped create Caesars' retail mall on the Strip. The highly successful and upscale Forum Shops established a retail trend that made shopping part of the resort gambling experience. Other resorts built in recent years such as the Venetian and Aladdin came complete with their own malls.

Lanni then took the helm at MGM, where he produced record profits at the 5,005-room MGM Grand by restructuring its debt and implementing a $700 million overhaul to make "The City of Entertainment" competitive with the newer, must-see resorts.

As a measure of his success, Lanni's salary and bonus in 1999 totaled $1.9 million.

It's difficult to find Lanni's critics even among those on the other side of the bargaining table.

Wilhelm, who has about 18,000 members at Lanni's properties, has been negotiating labor contracts with Lanni for 14 years.

The labor leader fought a bitter battle to unionize MGM Grand employees. But when Lanni assumed the top executive position, he replaced the anti-union regime in control when the hotel-casino opened and began talks with Wilhelm.

"He's a tough businessman, but I don't think there's a better human being in my book," Wilhelm said. "He's a person of extraordinary character. He's a very well-grounded with a very strong sense of morality which he doesn't flaunt."

Competitor Tom Gallagher, chief executive officer of Park Place, the world's largest gambling company, described Lanni as a man of extraordinary intellect, ability and integrity.

"He would have ended up on the top of a great company in any industry," he said.

Another close competitor, Glenn Schaeffer, Mandalay Resort Group president, said: "Terry Lanni continues to be an organizing force who's looked up to in gaming - thoughtful and thorough."

Fellow commission member, Bill Bible, current president of the Nevada Resort Association and former chairman of the Nevada Gaming Control Board, said Lanni has great personal integrity.

"He's one of the people that has brought Nevada from its past into its position of prominence that gambling has, not only in Nevada, but in the country," Bible said. "He clearly represents the modern face of gaming."

After relinquishing his full-time executive duties as MGM's chairman in November 1999 to return to California to spend more time with family, Lanni was lured back in April 2000 to run MGM Grand Inc., citing the company's acquisition of Mirage Resorts as the reason for his return.

A devout Catholic, Lanni says his wife and boys, 16 and 14, are his priorities. During the week he resides at the MGM Grand's high-roller suites, the Mansions, but he has California homes in Pasadena and Rancho Santa Fe that he returns to on weekends.

Jason Ader, gaming analyst for Bear, Stearns & Co., said it would be hard to find an executive in any business with Lanni's credentials.

"Terry is one of those guys who has the intellectual capacity to do lots of other things," Ader said.

One of those things, besides running a company with 49,000 employees and properties on three continents, is breeding thoroughbreds for racing.

"I always say in life if you're in a position to, you should do something that's frivolous, but legal," Lanni said. "And I think horse racing certainly fulfills that particular requirement."