Las Vegas & The Whales

Las Vegas & The Whales

John L. Smith has written a book, Running Scared, about Steve Wynn, the Las Vegas casino king which I read on our recent trip. It’s not particularly well written and paints Wynn in an unfavorable light. In fact, the whole Las Vegas scene comes across as unsavory with a dark side most people don’t see. I wouldn’t recommend the book, but I was interested in a few sections. One dealt with the impact of the high roller Las_vegas "whales" from Japan who contributed so much money to the Las Vegas casinos until the Japanese economy failed and the casinos began looking to other Asian gamblers instead. Smith writes that one Japanese gambler, with ties to Japan’s mob, lost more then $150 million in Las Vegas and dropped some $75 million in two years just at Wynn’s Mirage casino. By comparison in 1988 billionaire Kirk Kerkorian purchased the Desert Inn and the Sands hotels, both, for just $167 million. The book says that the game of baccarat produced up to 17% of the total revenue of the Mirage in its first two years of operation and the Asian "whales" accounted for most of that. Smith describes betting of $100,000 a hand up to even a million dollars a hand. Wynn has built an exclusive golf course for the big betters that is private and posh. Smith claims he did so after he was refused membership in an exclusive California golf club. There are no members except Wynn and those he invites. After reading this book I realize that in our once every two year or more visits to Las Vegas my $5 bets on the crap table does not qualify me as a high roller and if I did know how to play golf, I wouldn’t be invited to play on his course

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