Gaming industry legends applauded by UNLV Hall

David Strow

Friday, Feb. 22, 2002 | 10:55 a.m.

Steve Wynn, E. Parry Thomas and William "Si" Redd were made the first inductees Thursday into the Nevada Business Hall of Fame.

The three men -- a casino mogul, a banker and a slot machine manufacturing legend -- were each honored for their roles in shaping the modern Las Vegas gaming industry. The Hall of Fame was created by the University of Nevada, Las Vegas' College of Business and consulting firm Andersen "to honor Nevada's top business leaders who have significantly contributed to the economic prosperity of Nevada and brought positive recognition to the state."

"I think this is probably the loveliest thing that could happen to me, in terms of recognition by our community," Wynn said. "This is as good as it gets."

For Wynn and Thomas, being inducted together had special meaning. After all, Thomas was the banker who gave Wynn his start on the Strip by helping him purchase a land parcel on the Strip in the 1970s from Howard Hughes. After threatening to build a small casino at the site -- located directly next to Caesars Palace -- Wynn quickly flipped it to the owners of Caesars for a $667,000 profit.

Thomas later helped fund Wynn's acquisition and expansion of downtown's Golden Nugget, the first property in what later became Mirage Resorts Inc.

"I think I can trace every one of the wonderful opportunities we had to the advice of this man," Wynn said.

"Steve is my fifth son, and no son has made a parent more proud than me," Thomas said.

Wynn no longer controls Mirage Resorts, after selling the company he built to MGM Grand Inc. for $6.4 billion in 2000. Yet Wynn said Le Reve, the resort he's proposed for the Desert Inn site, gave him the opportunity to do what he really loved. And Le Reve will be something "more clever, more modern, more today" than anything else in Las Vegas, Wynn said.

"My kick is in making them (resorts)," Wynn said. "It's not in the possession."

Wynn headed to Tokyo to find his partner in Le Reve, and he's preparing to head to Wall Street to raise additional capital. But in his early days, the one person willing to supply him money when others wouldn't was Thomas.

Many casino executives could say that about the retired chairman of Valley Bank. Starting with an investment at the Sahara in 1954, Thomas was the first banker willing to put money into gaming properties, and funds from Valley Bank helped fuel the early expansion of the Strip.

"My biggest challenge ... was the insatiable appetite (of casino operators) for loans," Thomas said.

Later, Thomas played a central role in lobbying for changes in Nevada's gaming regulations to allow corporations to invest in casinos -- a move that eventually led to the transformation of the Las Vegas gaming industry into one ruled by corporations.

Bankers just didn't want to do business with the men who ran the Strip before them. Thomas called them former illegal gamblers who came to Las Vegas to become legitimate.

But for a banker looking to be repaid his loans, Thomas said these "characters" were about as good as borrowers get.

"They were probably the most honorable people I ever met," Thomas said. "Their word was their bond."

Unlike Wynn and Thomas, Redd didn't play much of a role in building the casinos of the Strip. His development career came later in life, when he built Si Redd's Oasis in Mesquite.

But Redd played a big role in creating the modern slot machines that fill Las Vegas casino floors. The son of a Mississippi sharecropper, Redd founded International Game Technology, the company that today is the dominant slot manufacturer in the gaming industry.

While there, he created the first video poker machines -- today a cornerstone of casino floors across the country. Redd also brought IGT's "Megabucks" machine to market, creating a new level of slot machine jackpots.

Redd said he knew the slot business would be a profitable one after watching gamblers pour money into "Big Bertha" slot machines shortly after arriving in Reno in the 1960s.

"One of these Big Bertha machines took in more than my entire route of jukeboxes in Massachusetts," Redd said.

Like Wynn, Redd said he still dreams of new innovations. But Redd told the audience that he, unlike Wynn, would be willing to give his latest vision away -- a slot with four reels, each a 60-foot-high Ferris wheel. If you lose, Redd reasoned, you could at least go for a ride on the slot machine.

"I'll give it to anyone free of charge," Redd said. "But you have to give Ms. (Carol) Harter (president of UNLV) 2 percent of what it takes in."