Las Vegas Casino Gambling
By Mike Godsey
By the mid 1960s,
was well on its way to establishing itself as the gaming and sports betting
capital of the world. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t room for another
visionary to challenge the status quo and expand the concept of those who had
come before him. Of the many daring dreamers and schemers who have left their
legacy in this desert oasis, here’s a look at one of the four men who really
made an impact.
Part 2: The Man Who Bought
Early in his life he was known as a swashbuckling aviator, a playboy who
romanced Hollywood actresses and Las Vegas showgirls, a shrewd and often
ruthless businessman who parlayed an oil drilling bit into one of the world’s
great fortunes, and the man who had designed a special uplift bra for the
actress Jane Russell to wear in the motion picture, “The Outlaw.”
By his twilight years he had degenerated into a pathetic, paranoid,
long-haired, straggly bearded, reclusive billionaire so fearful of disease he
avoided all human contact, spending most of his time alone in a darkened room,
surrounded by boxes of Kleenex and covered only by a bed sheet. When the end
mercifully came, April 5, 1976, at the age of 70, at
of Acapulco bound for Houston, his once sturdy, 6-foot, 4-inch frame carried a
mere
But somewhere between the genuine genius and the mystifying madness was the
real Howard Hughes, the man who tried to buy
and mold it in his image. The amazing part is that he nearly got away with it.
Hughes was a month shy of his 61st birthday when he arrived in
Vegas
and took up residency on the top floor of the Desert Inn,
had sold TWA, the fledgling airline he had first
bought for $1 million in 1939, for $546 million. Meanwhile, his Hughes Aircraft
Co., which produced weapons for the
government, was valued at $1 billion and his Hughes Tool Company would fetch an
additional $150 million in 1972. There also was a Hughes helicopter division,
Hughes Air-West, a television station in
an architectural firm, as well as substantial property holdings in
and the
Howard Hughes was a very rich man.
So when Moe Dalitz, the feisty owner of the Desert
Inn, sought to make good on a promise from Hughes that the billionaire would
vacate his hotel by Christmas, instead of moving out, Hughes bought him out. It
was the beginning of Hughes’ attempt to make Las Vegas his own private Monopoly
board.
Under the umbrella of his huge conglomerate, Summa Corporation, Hughes quickly
acquired the Frontier, Castaways, Landmark, Silver Slipper and Sands
hotel-casinos in
as Harold’s Club in
also negotiated to purchase
the Dunes, Stardust and
in
and
in
the form of possible anti-trust action against him probably prevented those
sales but Hughes consoled himself with 2,000 mining claims in the state,
including most of the land around the airport, and another TV station.
Because of the hundreds of millions of dollars he invested in the
Vegas
decaying industry, Hughes expected, and usually received, preferential
treatment. Hence, his casinos were dutifully licensed despite the fact that
Hughes refused to appear before gaming authorities, much less be photographed—something
that hadn’t occurred since 1957 – fingerprinted or interviewed.
After four year, Hughes left
not only annoyed that he had failed to control every aspect of the city’s
destiny, but melancholy and fearful that his many contributions to
Vegas
”So now I wind up a supposedly successful businessman who has wrecked his
health and consumed the best part of his life in the process,” writes Hughes in
Citizen Hughes, a biography by Michael Drosnin which
explores the eccentric billionaire through internal memos and notes in Hughes’
own hand. “I can’t help but feel I must have given something to this community.”
Gazing upon the gambling and sports betting wonderland that is today’s
Vegas
Next, Part 3: The Man Who Played
This article was written by Luken Karel
on behalf of