The revenge of Steve Wynn

By Christopher Palmeri

updated 4:22 p.m. ET April 26, 2005

LAS VEGAS - At the hiring office for the new Wynn Resorts Ltd. casino in Las Vegas, parking lot attendants carry flashlights to direct applicants like jets on a busy runway. Arte Nathan, Wynn's human resources chief, says he has 108,700 applications for 10,000 jobs. Two thousand offers have gone out to employees of rival casino operator MGM Mirage Inc., which has banned Nathan from setting foot on its properties.

The hiring boom is just the latest salvo in what's shaping up to be the biggest casino war Sin City has ever seen. On April 28, industry legend Stephen A. Wynn will open the first new resort in five years on the Las Vegas Strip. At a cost of $2.7 billion, Wynn Las Vegas will be the most expensive casino in the world, boasting features such as a three-acre man-made lake, a Maserati/Ferrari dealership, and the Strip's only golf course. Wynn, 63, will be competing head-to-head with MGM, whose largest shareholder, Kirk Kerkorian, snatched Wynn's Mirage Resorts Inc. away from him in a hostile takeover five years ago. "It's going to be the revenge of Steve Wynn," says Anthony Curtis, publisher of the Las Vegas Advisor, a newsletter for gamblers. "He has put everything into showing he's the guy who makes the best resorts in the world."

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Wynn began plotting his comeback just a month after agreeing to sell Mirage Resorts, when he plunked down $270 million to buy the old Desert Inn. In the past, Wynn's credo was bigger-is-better, but the new property is designed to be more intimate. With 2,700 hotel rooms and 111,000 square feet of casino space, it is about a third smaller than rivals such as the Bellagio, the Venetian, and the MGM Grand. And Wynn has learned from miscues at his other properties. The hotel's centerpiece will be a multi-media light-and-water show over the lake. But unlike attractions at other properties he has designed, the view from the street is blocked by an 18-story man-made mountain; to enjoy the spectacle, you have to eat at a restaurant or book a room.

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