Winner Takes All: Steve Wynn, Kirk Kerkorian, Gary Loveman, and the Race to Own Las Vegas |...

Winner Takes All: Steve Wynn, Kirk Kerkorian, Gary Loveman, and the Race to Own Las Vegas | Christina Binkley | Fascinating!

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Winner Takes All: ...

	Winner Takes All: Steve Wynn, Kirk Kerkorian, Gary Loveman, and the Race to Own Las Vegas Christina Binkley Hyperion, 2008 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 13 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Big audacious buildings; bigger, more audacious personalities.

Las Vegas changed so much, so quickly over the past fifteen years, that it makes sense to take a step back and see how it all got started and played out so far. Binkley does just that in this well-researched and well-written chronicle of a frenzied period in Las Vegas' history filled with big buildings and even bigger personalities. You'll learn a lot reading this book, but it's also a truly fun read.

Starting the book, I worried when Binkley mentioned the "greed" of the major casino owners in Las Vegas. Books about business that view the desire to improve profits as "greed" tend to not offer much insight, because they can't understand the diverse forces that drive the people running the companies. This book avoids that fate beautifully, really digging into the differences in character and personality amongst the different people who run the different companies that dominate the Vegas landscape.

The most interesting thing about this book is getting behind the scenes with Steve Wynn, who comes across as the person who looks down the road five or ten years to what Las Vegas will need to become next in order to continue building on its own success and popularity. When everyone else copies his latest idea, he moves onto the next one, constantly pushing everyone, and the city, ahead with him. As the visionary of the bunch, he is the most fascinating character to follow, both for his successes, and for the troubles he has with people who minds are a little too stuck in the here-and-now for his taste.

Highly recommended for anyone who likes business, Las Vegas, big personalities, or would just like to know a little more about how Las Vegas became the place it is today.

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Fascinating!

A great summation of the last 15 years of Las Vegas, the influences that made it what it is, and the big personalities that rule the land. One negative comment I have is the movie is really two stories in one, Wynn/Kerkorian their deal and influence, and how Loveman/Harrahs elbowed its way from a smalltime operator to major player.

The majority of the book is about Wynn and his influence in Las Vegas and how it developed from the Mirage to the Bellagio to the Wynn. And of course the big occurrence is the buyout of Wynn's operation by Kerkorian when he senses the stock weakness caused by Wynn's lack of management skills. A very fascinating story!

After completing the acquisition the book slows down somewhat as it tells the tale of middle market Harrah's and how it busts into the big time by acquiring Ceasar's. This book explores the mathematical focus at Harrah's and how it increases profitablity. While it's interesting reading how a glorified math professor rises to casino president while retaining his old lifestyle, this section is the least interesting at least for me.

In summary this is a fascinating read of a fascinating city. Just a walk down the strip let's anyone see every part of American culture good and bad as Las Vegas is the mecca of most Americans at some point in their lives.

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Great Book!

I was looking for a good biography of Steve Wynn and stumbled upon this book - and was it ever a good find!

I like Binkley's writing style and the fact that she doesn't "dumb it dlass="textlinks">own" too much. Her book takes us through the large scale development and evolution on the Vegas strip over the last 20 years and it's three biggest moguls. We get an inside look at Wynn, Kirk Kerkorian (of MGM Mirage) and, to a lessor degree, Gary Loveman of Harrah's - as well as a number of other executives that came and went along the way.

I definitely recommend it if you're at all into hotel/resort development or investing, Las Vegas history, Steve Wynn, people with money, business profiles or all of the above.

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Good, but uneven, treatment of recent Vegas development

Christina Binkley's Winner Takes lass="textlinks">All book starts her tale of Vegas about ten years ago with the city transcending its role as the place for gamblers to become a travel destination for the world. It's understandable to start there. Binkley started reporting on Vegas for the Wall Street Journal, and a rush of consolidation begins.

For the knowledgeable Vegas fan, it is disorienting. Telling the story of the Rio as being the place identified with gourmet food and wine overlooks that Jean-Louise Palladin (Napa restaurant) and the Rio's expensive wine cellar were part of the Masquerade Village expansion. The Rio did not drop onto the desert in 1997 with Jean-Louis holding bottles of Chateau Petrus. The book talks about Harrah's as not having a decent property in Vegas into the 1990's, only the old Holiday Casino, but Harrah's renamed and renovated the Holiday casino about a decade before the start of the book. Anything and everything that happens before 1997 is treated as a single cotemporaneous event.

It seems to me this book is a good description of four recent events:
The loss of the Mirage properties by Steve Wynn (the most compelling and best covered story of the four)
The acquisition of Mirage and Mandalay Bay by MGM
Harrah's growth based on analytics and the acquisition of Caesars
The building of Wynn (the casino)

Things I like:
Being a former writer for the Wall Street Journal, the business aspects should be well covered, and they are. Beyond the three featured corporate players, the book also features many other chief officers of the Mirage, MGM, Harrahs and other corporations. There is also a good account of the transformation of Harrah's using customer based competing analytics.

I liked the book's focus on recent (last decade) history of Vegas.

I liked the well documented account of Kerkorian's buyout of Wynn's Mirage Corporation and of Steven Wynn's failures that led to the buyout. This is where the story is most compelling. When Wynn's vision becomes the only vision for the Mirage and there is no questioning or vetting of that vision, the Mirage Corporation flounders. People who disagree are fired (for example, the financial officer). The sycophants are given free range (for example, in Mississippi where a project spins wildly out of control). Wynn's arrogance, extravagance, and misplaced focus (worrying more about creating a new American musical than the over spending of hundreds of millions) drags the business down. Contrast that to Kerkorian who relies upon the skills of the people he hires, and the team beats the individual.

Things I didn't like:
What is it about Vegas that make journalists go gonzo? At times this book reads like a combination of Hunter Thompson and John Madden doing his color commentary. I do enjoy an informal, conversational, breezy style, but this is, at times, more like a hurricane. Do smart, educated people really need to be referred to as "propeller heads"?

It's always easy to trace a linear trail back from the point of success to recreate the obvious outcome. I would have preferred to see successes juxtaposed with the many failed attempts in Vegas (other than just Wynn's loss of Mirage).

In contradiction to the subtitle of the book, this is a story of the Strip, not Vegas (well, except for the above mentioned Rio). The Maloofs (Palms) and Fretittas (Stations) are barely mentioned. As story of the Strip, it's still not thorough. Sheldon Adelson is described, it seems, more as a disabled Macao casino owner than as a significant Strip casino owner. Donald Trump is more prominent than all the above named combined.

The book is uneven. Some events, many dates and many details are missing, leaving a superficial feeling. Other times, the details are thick. We are told of the attire of individuals at some meetings. We get plenty of details on Steve Wynn's obsession with entertainment and his extravagant failures. Yet, we only get passing mentions of what Steve did with restaurants. The problems that Harrah's had in taking over the Rio are left to just a couple of vague sentences with no conclusion.

Overall:
A very good addition to the history of Vegas covering the most recent developments. I enjoy reading about Vegas, including the business of Vegas, so I enjoyed the book, and it was worth the purchase. If I'm looking for an even and thorough treatment of Sin City with single consistent point of view, I'm a little disappointed.

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Slots of Fun

This was a very interesting book and the closest thing to reading an autobiography of any of the main three men profiled: Kerkorian, Wynn and Loveman. The writing was easy to follow although, I did feel that the information was not presented in an orderly way. The book didn't begin with a history and move forward and it didn't begin at the present and go back either; the information was rather free-flowing and jumbled. The insight into the three men and how they conduct business was fascinating, especilass="textlinks">ally the interactions/business between Wynn and Kerkorian. It felt, at times, that the author was biased against Wynn as he was presented in a really ... negative light. There really isn't much personal info. about these men in non-fiction - aside from news articles, so if you have an interest in vegas corporate dealings this would be a good choice. I was surprised that Sheldon Adelson (ofthe Venetian) wasn't part of the group of men profiled, and was surprised also to learn that Wynn is basically blind.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

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