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Audiobook12 hours
Winner Takes All: Steve Wynn, Kirk Kerkorian, Gary Loveman, and the Race to Own Las Vegas
Written by Christina Binkley
Narrated by Cynthia Holloway
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
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Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this audiobook
An unprecedented up-close-and-personal look at the trio of tycoons whose high-stakes gambles-in business-make Sin City soar.
Steve Wynn. Kirk Kerkorian. Dr. Gary Loveman. The first two are world-famous for their flamboyant, often outrageous efforts to dominate Las Vegas. But it's the third-an economist from Harvard Business School, unknown even to most of the guests at his high-profile casinos-who may now have the most impact. In Winner Takes All, Christina Binkley, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, explores how these three magnates are building a bigger and better Las Vegas and how their influence is spreading beyond the city's borders.
Meet the winners:
-Steve Wynn is the visionary behind the Mirage, the Bellagio, and the $2.7 billion Wynn Las Vegas. Loud and passionate, with a tragic backstory-a world-renowned art collector, he is slowly going blind from retinitis pigmentosa-Wynn is often called the architect of modern Las Vegas.
-Kirk Kerkorian, who is in his late eighties, is a shy, sly tactician, but his status as a billionaire deal maker who owns half the strip-and his history as nemesis to Howard Hughes-keeps him in the forefront of Las Vegas, wheeling and dealing.
-Dr. Gary Loveman, the CEO of Harrah's Entertainment, Inc., represents a new, more populist future for Las Vegas, one in which gamblers will be carefully culled from databases rather than lured by flash. Loveman approaches the city as though it were a Harvard case study. On the verge of becoming Las Vegas's-and possibly the world's-biggest gambling titan, he refuses to even live there.
Peppered with celebrity cameos (from Siegfried and Roy to George and Barbara Bush), this sharp, fast-paced narrative tells the story of how billions of dollars-and an unparalleled drive for power-took three men's visions for Las Vegas from mere dreams to reality.
Steve Wynn. Kirk Kerkorian. Dr. Gary Loveman. The first two are world-famous for their flamboyant, often outrageous efforts to dominate Las Vegas. But it's the third-an economist from Harvard Business School, unknown even to most of the guests at his high-profile casinos-who may now have the most impact. In Winner Takes All, Christina Binkley, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, explores how these three magnates are building a bigger and better Las Vegas and how their influence is spreading beyond the city's borders.
Meet the winners:
-Steve Wynn is the visionary behind the Mirage, the Bellagio, and the $2.7 billion Wynn Las Vegas. Loud and passionate, with a tragic backstory-a world-renowned art collector, he is slowly going blind from retinitis pigmentosa-Wynn is often called the architect of modern Las Vegas.
-Kirk Kerkorian, who is in his late eighties, is a shy, sly tactician, but his status as a billionaire deal maker who owns half the strip-and his history as nemesis to Howard Hughes-keeps him in the forefront of Las Vegas, wheeling and dealing.
-Dr. Gary Loveman, the CEO of Harrah's Entertainment, Inc., represents a new, more populist future for Las Vegas, one in which gamblers will be carefully culled from databases rather than lured by flash. Loveman approaches the city as though it were a Harvard case study. On the verge of becoming Las Vegas's-and possibly the world's-biggest gambling titan, he refuses to even live there.
Peppered with celebrity cameos (from Siegfried and Roy to George and Barbara Bush), this sharp, fast-paced narrative tells the story of how billions of dollars-and an unparalleled drive for power-took three men's visions for Las Vegas from mere dreams to reality.
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Reviews for Winner Takes All
Rating: 3.7666666666666666 out of 5 stars
4/5
15 ratings1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Now THIS is the book on Las Vegas I have been searching for. Not merely a history or list of developers, but profiles of the people and their visions that have made Las Vegas the sparkly, shiny growth capital that it is.The author addresses both the tacky beginnings and the underlying unease that people, even people who live here, find in an economy built on vice. Kerkorian (MGM) and Loveman (Harrah's-Caesar's) both covet the potential that is here, but live elsewhere. Wynn (Mirage, then Wynn) has been a Las Vegas booster from the first day that he moved here, but has also tried to bring his childhood memories of eastern tall tree forests and lakes for waterskiing to this desert community. While Kerkorian and Wynn are rivals, they both want to built temples to their vision. Wynn has Wynn and Encore, Kerkorian is building CityCenter. Loveman is a Harvard labor economist who brought an intense analysis of how people gamble and how he can encourage them to gamble only at his casinos via Reward Cards and contests and chatty personalized emails. Each of these men have brought a piece of their vision and made Las Vegas what it is today. Kerkorian brought in Wall Street investors and made casinos corporate. Wynn saw that Las Vegas was more than gambling and brought in the first Ferrari dealership and other upscale retailers into Nevada while building his disneyesque casinos. Loveman carved out the science of blue collar gambling and brought hordes of people to his low cost, low glitz casinos.If Las Vegas is a puzzle, then it is a puzzle made of the pieces that these men and their staffs originated. Without them Las Vegas would be a low rent poker palace with a few dusty suburbs. I'm glad it is not.