Wynn, others recall Bennett

Ed Koch and Liz Benston

Tuesday, Dec. 24, 2002 | 10:56 a.m.

William G. Bennett was remembered Monday as part of a pantheon of gaming visionaries in Las Vegas' post-Howard Hughes corporate era who helped change the town's outlaw image by operating resorts that attracted families and a value-conscious crowd.

One local gaming expert said the reason major casino operators such as Bennett, Steve Wynn and others like them were successful during the past 30 years is because they were never satisfied with their past glories and were constantly searching for new worlds to conquer.

"Bill took a simple program and built a big company -- and he was constantly moving on," Wynn said after learning Monday that Bennett, founder and ex-chairman of Circus Circus Enterprises and owner of the Sahara, died Sunday at a Las Vegas hospital at age 78. Circus Circus is now called Mandalay Resort Group is one of the largest gaming companies in the world.

Wynn met Bennett in 1968 when Wynn was a liquor salesman and Bennett was general manager of the Mint, where he had reversed that downtown casino's trend of losing $2 million annually to making $9 million a year.

"Bill didn't stop with the Mint or with Circus Circus or with the Excalibur or the Luxor," Wynn said. "Bill understood that in Las Vegas, you have to stay on your toes and that means you have to keep giving more of a show."

Gaming analyst David Schwartz, coordinator of the Gaming Studies Research Center at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said the success of Las Vegas in the corporate era has depended on varied forms of leadership and diverse ideas.

"The broader picture is that you needed both the Bill Bennetts and Steve Wynns for the level of success Las Vegas has achieved," said Schwartz, an expert on both the history of gaming and the casino industry.

"You needed Bill Bennett because he opened a new market for the value-oriented customers and for families and you needed Steve Wynn at the other end of the spectrum marketing to those who seek luxury vacations."

In their early days in Las Vegas, Bennett and Wynn conducted business together -- and discussed their futures -- sitting in the dark confines of the Mint's Zodiac Bar. There, Wynn saw in Bennett a man who wanted more for Las Vegas.

"Bill Bennett's greatest contribution was in marketing our town to a broader range of customers," Wynn said. "Bill gave the largest segment of our population the visual excitement and the fantasy show of Las Vegas.

"He built 10,000 to 14,000 rooms for a population that otherwise would not have been able to afford to come here."

Wynn's rise was as meteoric as Bennett's. Wynn went from running a bingo hall in Maryland in the mid-1960s to gaining controlling interest of the Golden Nugget to ushering in the megaresort age in the 1980s with the Mirage.

Still, in some ways, Schwartz said, Bennett's philosophy of going after the smaller player worked better, especially in leaner times like the post-Sept. 11 period when people curtailed flying.

"Places like the Sahara did much better after Sept. 11 because they had that broader base" of customers, Schwartz said.

Schwartz warned that caution should be used when comparing Las Vegas' corporate era to the so-called "mob" era because they overlap. And, he said, it can be argued that corporate Vegas did not necessarily begin with Hughes.

"Howard Hughes did not arrive in Las Vegas until 1966," Schwartz said of the influential figure who later bought several Strip resorts, including the Desert Inn and the Sands, and put a corporate face on the local gaming industry.

"However, Bennett began working for Del Webb at Webb's Sahara Tahoe in 1965. Webb always was corporate so he and his places always had a clean image."

And Schwartz said many old-time gaming bosses adapted well to the modern corporate style and found great success with it.

Still, old habits die hard. For example, Wynn said he had a heck of a time persuading Bennett to go public with Circus Circus. The company went public in 1983, nine years after Bennett took the helm.

"Bill just had this thing against going public," said Wynn, who made the Golden Nugget a publicly traded company, which resulted in enough money being raised to build a successful Atlantic City casino.

"Bill called me and said he saw how we got all of this money to build in New Jersey and that he needed to raise a lot of money to make improvements at Circus Circus, but he didn't want to take it public. I told him he was wrong not to go public because the benefits far outweighed the negatives."

Wynn set up a meeting between Bennett, Bennett's partner William Pennington and one of Wynn's board members, John Kissick, to discuss taking Circus Circus public -- "and the rest is history," Wynn said.

Wynn said in the early 1970s he had offered Bennett a high-level job at the Golden Nugget. But he said Bennett declined so he could pursue his dream of owning his own place.

In 1974, Bennett and Pennington bought Circus Circus from its builder, gaming pioneer Jay Sarno.

"Jay Sarno actually built the Circus Circus for an adult market," Schwartz said. "At one point Sarno charged an admission to the casino to pay for the circus acts, and that, of course, failed. The casino initially opened without a hotel, and that also was a big problem for him."

"Bennett gave Circus Circus a new mission."

Bennett moved the circus acts away from the casino floor to the mezzanine, where they became a hit with families and kept kids out of the gambling area.

After going public with Circus Circus, Bennett raised money that enabled the company to build hotel rooms and gave him the opportunity to develop promotions that included $19-a-night room rates and low-price buffets.

"Bill Bennett had a definite feel for what his customers wanted," Schwartz said.

Occurring less than three months after the Sahara's 50th anniversary and less than a month after the death of colleague and Imperial Palace casino owner Ralph Engelstad, Bennett's passing opens the door for a new generation to run the Sahara on the north end of the Las Vegas Strip.

The Sahara made assurances today that the property will not be sold.

Bennett's wife, Lynn, will maintain control of the company while his daughter, Diana, oversees day to day operations at the Sahara.

They expect to keep the property in the family to "keep his legacy alive," Sahara General Manager Larry Serna said.

Like Engelstad, Bennett avoided the public spotlight and was a behind-the-scenes philanthropist who gave money to various charities without seeking recognition.

A private man

Bennett was a private man and kept his plans close to the vest, even among high-ranking employees, former and current Sahara staffers say.

In his last interview with the Sun a few months ago, Bennett said his daughter had not been involved in managing his assets.

Diana Bennett founded Paragon Gaming Holding Co., a Las Vegas company that signed an agreement to develop and manage a casino for the Augustine Band of Cahuilla Mission Indians near Palm Springs, Calif. that opened last summer. The company also is pursuing other casino deals with tribes.

The Sahara -- one of the Strip's first and finest resorts when it opened in 1952 -- has reinvented itself as a bargain destination in recent years to compete with ever more luxurious megaresorts to the south. The property attracts old-timers with some flair of vintage Las Vegas alongside a rollercoaster, a NASCAR-theme cafe and a video game arcade for younger customers. Two newer Sahara shows -- comedienne Charo's musical Bravo and high-tech magic performed by Steve Wyrick -- attract people of all ages, representatives say.

As of a few months ago, Bennett had said that the Sahara was making money -- though the business was still recovering from the effect of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Other hotels responded by lowering room rates -- rates that still lag last year's and compete with the Sahara's. Still, the casino's ongoing "blackjack for a buck" promotion has attracted a steady stream of customers, representatives said.

In addition to the Sahara, Bennett owned a roughly 36-acre parcel across from the resort -- one of the last available parcels of vacant land on the Strip. Hilton Hotels Corp. is building a timeshare complex on about 10 acres of that land.

This year, he pulled the remaining parcel off the market in anticipation of higher land prices.

The prospect of future projects at the north end of the Strip -- including an anticipated 2005 opening for Steve Wynn's Le Reve resort at the Desert Inn site and an anticipated megaresort at the New Frontier nearby -- will boost its $65 million pricetag, observers said.

Prime location

The Sahara is located in an area poised for redevelopment, industry watchers say.

Le Reve, a people-mover under construction east of the Strip and the recent expansion of nearby Fashion Show Mall have boosted the fortunes of the Strip's north end, they say. Boyd Gaming Corp., which has talked of further developing its roughly 60-acre parcel under its nearby Stardust hotel and casino, also is bullish on such developments.

"I think that with money and visionaries, things are going to happen," said Jackie Brett, a former entertainment director for the Sahara. "I think there's a future at the north end of the Strip."

The Strip has lost a mentor as well as a visionary, Serna said.

"He's been a pioneer in Las Vegas for so long it's hard to believe he's gone."

Funeral arrangements were still pending as of this morning. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Bennett Foundation, an organization that supports charities throughout Las Vegas as well as UNLV and other educational foundations. Donations may be mailed to the Bennett Foundation at 2535 Las Vegas Blvd. South, Las Vegas, NV 89109.

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