Running Scared: The Life and Treacherous Times of Las Vegas Casino King Steve Wynn [Paperback]

John L. Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2, 2001

Steve Wynn is the former owner of the Bellagio — Las Vegas's latest monument to conspicuous consumption whose hotel and casino contain over $300 million in fine art and $1.5 billion in Wall Street money. He's a mogul whose empire at one point included the Mirage, the Golden Nugget, and Treasure Island. But how did he gain and wield his tremendous power in Nevada? And why did a confidential Scotland Yard report prevent him from opening a casino in London? When this biography, written by a local reporter, was first released in 1995, Steve Wynn brought suit against its original publisher and forced him into bankruptcy. Now available in paperback, the inside story of the biggest phenomenon to roil Las Vegas since Hoover Dam gives readers an intimate glimpse at the real business that's conducted beyond the gaming tables.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John L. Smith is an award-winning columnist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal and author of The Animal in Hollywood. He and his wife make their home in the quiet hills that surround noisy Las Vegas. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (March 2, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568581904
• ISBN-13: 978-1568581903
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #45,628 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #63 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Regional U.S. > West

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars "Running Scared" is running on empty, January 27, 2000

By 

Robin Luckey (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Running Scared: The Life and Treacherous Time of Las Vegas Casino King Steve Wynn (Hardcover)

This book reads like what it is -- a quick 300 pages cranked out by a Vegas journalist familiar with the subject, commissioned by a publisher with a rich history of wallowing in libel. The preface admits as much. The publisher proudly proclaims on the book jacket, "Steve Wynn has already sued the author of this book and its publisher twice...." Indeed, the book leaves you wondering if getting sued by Steve Wynn was the whole point of this book, and is the only notoriety this tabloid volume would ever have received.

The author does himself and the reader a great disservice with his vague source citations. The book lists a great many books, interviews, and court records, but unfortunately these sources are listed as a group at the end of the book and aren't footnoted throughout the text. This makes it impossible to discern the specific source for any of the claims in the book.

Most disappointingly, the book fails to give a satisfying biography of its subject. Most of the more fascinating business maneuvers in Wynn's career are sadly glossed over, leaving you with more questions than answers. How exactly did Wynn make so much money buying and selling a small lot on the corner of Caesar's? Exactly how did Wynn leverage control of the Golden Nugget? This book won't really tell you. All too often you'll have to be happy with the answer than Wynn "knew somebody".

I kept up hope for this book (having already read other damning customer reviews), but ultimately I found this book disappointing. It seemed unnecessarily condemning of Wynn -- if he's a crook, the facts should speak for themselves, and the author needn't pursue it so doggedly. This book seems only to prove that Wynn works in a business with a lot of shady peers, and that Wynn doesn't seem to mind it. What a surprise.

23 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Guilt By Association, May 20, 2003

By 

Paula Thornton "Experience Design Strategist" (Arlington, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Running Scared: The Life and Treacherous Time of Las Vegas Casino King Steve Wynn (Hardcover)

A recent pleasure trip to Las Vegas turned into a business adventure. A walk down the strip suddenly became a research project to analyze the 'Vegas Experience'. In the midst of gathering artifacts, casual conversations with long-time locals (a construction traffic director and a security guard -- both over 15 year residents) revealed a theme central to their blue collar perspective of the city: a great respect for a man by the name of Steve Wynn.

Even his employees were faultlessly loyal to him. The curator of his art collection, a retired professor of art history, willingly suggested that Steve knew far more about art than even he.

These things I discovered all in less than 6 hours. I bought this book in the hopes of learning more about the man. Rare instances of Wynn-specific information could be found (only by skipping large chunks of irrelevant stories). This book smacks of irresponsible journalism.

It seems as if Mr. Smith became a journalist in Las Vegas because of a penchant for sensational stories. Akin to the phenomena of the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon, this was the 2 degrees of Steve Wynn. John Smith took a number of sensational stories about events in Las Vegas and 'used' (also to be taken in a pejorative context) Steve Wynn as the thread to tie them together: guilt by association.

This was a thinly veiled attempt to write 'yet another' collection of mob stories (and other notable local mysterious events) while extorting Steve Wynn's name to secure new interest and sales.

I picture Mr. Smith being able to pull off a story portraying Mother Teresa as a devious opportunist. Mr. Smith's preposterous suppositions, called a book, might have been more appropriately titled: Running Scarred.

To find the story about Steve Wynn that I was looking for I may have to research and write it myself.

28 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Save your money, December 31, 2004

By 

estwald (Las Vegas, NV) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Running Scared: The Life and Treacherous Times of Las Vegas Casino King Steve Wynn (Paperback)

Be warned. If you're looking for the exciting true story about how one man revitalized a city in decline and truly modernized Las Vegas through vision and guts (as I was), you won't find it here.

This is not a book about Steve Wynn transforming Las Vegas. This is a tabloid hit job written by a hostile author who has only one objective: link Steve Wynn to the mob.

As a Vegas history buff and as someone who's interested in Wynn, let me concede the author's objective up front: okay sure. Of course Wynn knows mafia wiseguys. How could he not? How could Wynn arrive as a young man in Vegas in the 60s and climb the ladder of influence without making mob contacts? The mob ran the town! The only real surprise as far as I'm concerned is how little Wynn seems to be involved with the mafia.

It's not that I'm a huge fan of Wynn, and all of Smith's secondhand accounts of Wynn behaving like a spoiled brat in private seem plausable, but since it's so obvious that the author is laser-focused on smearing Wynn, who's to say I'm getting a balanced account?

Whole chapters are devoted to little more than proving that Wynn is friends with this particular mob middleman, and on this particular day in 1982, they were SEEN HAVING LUNCH at this particular bistro. Though Wynn would always deny that the lunch took place, that's not the recollection of this busboy, who we've tracked down, who was ACTUALLY THERE. etc. etc. This is the book.

I was most looking forward to a retelling of the story of how Wynn built the Mirage. Where did he get the inspiration? How was it financed? How did he pitch it to investors? How did it get built? What were the expectations? How was it received when it opened? How did it change the texture of the strip? We get none of that. Instead, around two-thirds of the way through the book, I turn the page, and the Mirage is suddenly there, no discussion, and we're hearing about how one of the casino hosts may have had mob ties. Weak sauce.

Look, maybe what Smith needed was an opening chapter stating what he was trying to achieve. He could have made a case that although Wynn has transformed the city and done some great things, he's not completely squeaky-clean and has gone to great lengths to hide his association to organized crime. He could have made the moral case about taking money from the mob, and then said explicitly that the purpose of the book was to air out Wynn's dirty laundry and to take the man down a notch. What we get instead is an account of Wynn that purports to be evenhanded and journalistic but is truly only interested in smearing the man.

If the popular positive image of Wynn as humanitarian and brilliant entrepeneur who saved Vegas isn't wholly correct, then Smith's problem is that he goes directly to the opposite extreme, painting Wynn as a greedy, slimy criminal. Maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle? Maybe that's a book I would want to read.