Steve Wynn, the billionaire casino mogul, and current Republican National Committee finance chairman, have just joined Harvey Weinstein, Bill O’Reilly, and Matt Lauer on a growing list of rich and powerful men accused of sexual misconduct.
On Friday, the Wall Street Journal published a story detailing a “decades-long pattern of sexual misconduct” by Wynn, based on interviews with dozens of people who worked at Wynn-owned resorts over the years.
Wynn has denied wrong doing. “The idea that I ever assaulted any woman is preposterous,” Wynn told the Journal when asked about the accusations. “We find ourselves in a world where people can make contention, regardless of the truth, and a person is left with the choice of weathering degrading publicity or engaging in multi-year lawsuits. It is deplorable for anyone to find themselves in this situation.”
Steve Wynn is easily one of the richest men to be accused of sexual misconduct and assault amid the #MeToo movement, which gained steam after the Harvey Weinstein scandal. The 75-year-old Wynn has routinely been called the “unofficial king of Las Vegas,” responsible for the development of casinos such as the Golden Nugget, Mirage, Bellagio, and Wynn Las Vegas. Steve Wynn’s net worth is estimated at $3.5 billion, according to Forbes. Here’s what we know about his money.
Wynn’s Resorts and Casinos
The gambling industry was something of a family business for the Wynns. Steve Wynn’s father, Michael, ran a bingo parlor in Maryland. He died in 1963, the same year that Steve Wynn graduated from college at the University of Pennsylvania. The younger Wynn immediately took over the family’s bingo operation, and in 1967 he sensed an opportunity and moved to Las Vegas to begin a long career in casinos.
After flipping some real estate on what would become a prime part of the Las Vegas Strip and netting a $1 million profit, Wynn bought a portion of the Golden Nugget and began turning the old downtown Las Vegas casino into a full-fledged hotel and resort. In 1980, Wynn opened a second Golden Nugget in Atlantic City, N.J., where Frank Sinatra often performed. By 1984, Wynn had an estimated net worth of $100 million.
In the late 1980s and ’90s, Wynn was at the forefront of a movement to push Las Vegas upscale. The Mirage, built by Wynn at the cost of $630 million, was the most expensive casino resort in history when it opened in 1989. The developer followed up by opening two more casinos on the Las Vegas Strip over the next decade: Treasure Island in 1993 and the Bellagio in 1998. The latter cost $1.6 billion, setting a new record for the most expensive casino ever built.
Wynn’s company, Mirage Resorts, was acquired by MGM Resorts in 2000 for $4.4 billion, thereby “probably ending the reign of Stephen A. Wynn, the founder, and chairman of Mirage, as the unofficial king of Las Vegas,” the New York Times observed at the time. But Wynn soon launched a new company, Wynn Resorts, which in 2005 opened the world’s newest and most expensive casino in history, the 215-acre, $2.7 billion Wynn Las Vegas. Wynn Resorts now has three other resort casinos—the Encore in Las Vegas, the Wynn Macau, and the Wynn Palace (also in Macau)—and two more in the works: in Boston Harbor and yet another in Las Vegas.
Steve Wynn’s Real Estate, Yachts, and Private Jets
As you’d imagine of a billionaire entrepreneur, Steve Wynn has lived a jet-setting lifestyle for decades and has bought and sold several luxurious homes over the years.
In the aftermath of the Wynns’ divorce, Elaine wound up with the couple’s $17 million apartment on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Steve Wynn bought and quickly flipped an apartment in the Plaza Hotel that same year (2010), netting $1 million in the process. In 2012, Wynn paid $70 million for a penthouse atop the Ritz Carlton Hotel on Central Park South in New York City. The apartment has 15-foot-high ceilings and spans a total of nearly 11,000 square feet over two floors. In Las Vegas, Wynn owns a 4,500-square-foot duplex villa overlooking the 18th hole of the Wynn Las Vegas golf course.
