It wasn't so long ago that the few casino/hotels were owned by individual owners. At one time it was the only way a casino got built. It was the Bugsy Siegals and the Wilbur Clarks and others making their money in devious ways to get their capital to see their dreams come true (dreams being another word for cash), but with the coming of Steve Wynn, the dreams quickly died. The older casinos took a dive as corporate America showed up on Las Vegas's door step. When corporate America saw the billions of dollars coming through the Las Vegas casinos, cash took on the face of a new morality. There were a few holdouts but eventually they all gave in to the huge cash offers and the last one to go would be Bob Stupak, called by Las Vegans the Polish Maverick. A poker playing genius that took his winnings and turned them into the casino called Vegas World, now the site of the Stratosphere; he broke every tradition in the book with his giveaways and exclusive poker tournaments. Comps were a given and the genius came up with several new games to lure people in.

One of his best ideas was the invention of the game of double exposure 21 where the dealer exposed both cards. The only drawback was that ties lose and blackjack paid even money. I worked there on the swing shift and at am there would be people standing behind people to get on that game, and yet nobody ever beat the game for more than a few bucks. Stupak was a maverick and mavericks in the face of corporate America were doomed by their own greed. The best offer took his casino - a casino built at the time for around $3 million - so when they flashed almost $20 million in his face he could no longer hold out. The last night before finally closing he gave the rooms out for free until the place was full. He sold drinks for a buck, no matter what brand until most all the booze was gone. He gave away or sold most of the fixtures, why he even dumped the Wheel of Fortune (the Big 6) which was almost two stories high. But before he would be pushed out of the gaming business he would accomplish one thing that would assure his name and reputation forever as a part of Las Vegas history, and that was the building of the Stratosphere Tower, named before the Stratosphere Hotel was even an idea.

But now that corporate America took over the entire town, there was no place for brilliant Las Vegas strategists; it turned into a place of followers instead of leaders. No longer would casinos be bought and owned by a single owner. Corporate America made sure of that by building huge casinos that no single person could afford to build that could compete with thousands of stockholders that would make the decision on the path to the now future of Las Vegas. Sure, there were cheap casinos in North Las Vegas built for a couple thousand dollars. They built them small and cozy, strictly for the locals in the area. As we look back, the reason those little casinos were successful in Las Vegas during all the building of the '90s was strictly a need to keep something in this town they could remember the next weekend, everything was happening at a record pace and there was nowhere to call home but the downtown area and their local bars and the old Boulder Highway "Strip" that ran from the old Showboat, past Sam's Town and Nevada Palace down to Henderson where the cheap motels were. It's where most of the incoming new Las Vegans got their starts while looking for work. Hanging out at the small bars and casinos all night while time just slipped away on that side of town, the Strip was cement city.

But there was still one player to contend with and he wouldn't go easily. Multi-millionaire Kirk Kirkorian, another Las Vegas visionary with real money that saw the potential in Las Vegas and bought up several casinos, The first and the largest was the Las Vegas Hilton. First called the Whyte House, the really first high standing hotel in Las Vegas, then bought by the Hilton Corporation. He decided he wanted something that would change the entire complexion of the Las Vegas Strip, a bigger gamble since he wasn't even on the Strip. The Hilton was a huge success with his newly refurbished hotel that he could put the Hilton name on. He brought the biggest shows into town including the Beatles and, of course, Elvis who called the Hilton his home. There's still a statue in the casino of Elvis and one of his guitars and gem-studded jump suits. Kirk was flying high, nobody that wanted the best minded the fact that he was a block away from the other casinos; in fact, it set his hotel apart from the others on the Strip. His hotel stood tall amongst most of the others in the area. The Stardust, the Riviera, the Desert Inn and the Thunderbird were all one-story casinos with Motor Inns in back. He had no competition to speak of amongst the really high rollers at the time except for the few places like Caesars Palace. It had its own persona, its own personality.

When I came to Vegas in '81, even I felt out of place at the Hilton. I could walk through Caesars and it looked like a movie set, thanks to Jay Sarno who built the place in 1964, but with one little drawback. The land that Caeser's sat on belonged to none other than Captain Kirk Kirkorian. He had paid around $25,000 for the land when it was still just desert and small gas stations and motels. When he sold the same piece of land to Jay Sarno, the price went to $5,000,000 overnight. He didn't like Sarno and didn't like the attempt to wrestle his high rollers to Caeser's, so he made sure Sarno paid dearly. After all, the entire Caeser's Palace cost $10,000,000 in '64. But when Park Place acquired the Flamingo from him, Captain Kirk sold out the Hilton in the '70s and decided to build the old MGM where Bally's sits today, right across the street from Caesars.

It was the biggest, most modern and the largest casino in the world when finished. Unfortunately in 1980, 87 people lost their lives in a fire that devastated the casino. People were caught trying to get out of their seats, thus the reason there are still seven spots at the tables but only six chairs allowed. He rebuilt but was tired of the business and sold out to Bally's Slot Corporation. However, with all the new competition of the '90s, he couldn't stay away and when the property across from the Tropicana where the hotel had one of the best golf courses right on the Strip became available, that today is now the site of the new MGM. Kirkorian couldn't stay away from competition even though he had all the money he could ever spend; he just couldn't stand seeing Wynn win. When Steve Wynn announced his plans for the Mirage, Kirkorian didn't bat an eye that is, until he saw the success of the Mirage. What he was afraid of came true. Now Caesars announced huge expansions to compete. The Treasure Island resort was announced and Kirkorian again was deeply concerned. So he spent millions to make the MGM a 4-star hotel, and although the MGM was a success, it was still hard to bring the customers in since the summer months were too hot to walk the distance and the winter months were too cold. Captain Kirk soon took the status as King of the Strip. Eventually he did the only thing he could do to bring Wynn down, he took him over by offering more for their stock than Wynn could afford to turn down and the chief holders of his properties made him finally sell out to Kirkorian, which once again made him King of the Strip. There was no saying no to Captain Kirk; he made everyone millions as well as himself. He was a self-made millionaire that didn't need the money but like most people in Las Vegas, he was addicted to the action. When the other owners saw his success they followed suit. Reporters scrambled to find out his story, his success, but no one to this day can figure out how he made a large run down casino originally called the Whyte House, into the still popular Las Vegas Hilton, still one of the biggest successes in Las Vegas.

Others try and try to follow his success but only a few can keep up although in the future who knows what will happen to the other casinos, but what we know for sure is that a poor Greek came to the United States and never looked back. He managed to shut up everyone who told him it was crazy to buy the old Hilton and showed them what millions of dollars could do to an old hotel. It was his plan years before, being a huge Star Trek fan to do something like the Star Trek Experience, thus the name Captain Kirk. And at the Hilton today stands some sort of weird legacy called the Star Trek Experience, a nod to an idea Kirkorian once had that managed to turn into the Emerald City (if any of you remember the MGM's main attraction when walking into through the front door.)

But I did notice one strange thing with my last visit to the Hilton, walking through the Star Trek Experience. I did notice that Captain Kirk looks astonishingly like Kirk Kirkorian when he was young. I wonder how much Kirk paid them to do that, a lasting memory of a great hotel he gave up thirty years ago. Now with Wynn's opening, we'll be watching the rest of the Strip boys and how they react, especially Captain Kirk.

Ken Pearlman