WFerdinand Augustus "Gus" Abell was an American businessman and one of the original founders of the team that became the Brooklyn Dodgers. A Rhode Island casino owner, he put up most of the money to form the team in 1883 and also was the leading financing behind the building of Washington Park, the home of the ballclub.
WCrandell Addington is an entrepreneur and poker player who is best known as one of the founders of the World Series of Poker, and is a member of the Poker Hall of Fame.
WSheldon Gary Adelson was an American businessman, investor, political donor and philanthropist. He was the founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Las Vegas Sands Corporation, which owns the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, and the parent company of Venetian Macao Limited, which operates The Venetian Las Vegas and the Sands Expo and Convention Center. He owned the Israeli daily newspaper Israel Hayom, the Israeli weekly newspaper Makor Rishon, and the American daily newspaper the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
WBobby Baldwin is a professional poker player and casino executive. As a poker player, Baldwin is best known as the winner of the 1978 World Series of Poker Main Event, becoming the youngest Main Event champion at that time.
WWilliam G. Bennett was an American gaming executive and real estate developer. Noted for pioneering Las Vegas as a destination for middle-class tourists and their families, he is best remembered for his establishment of gaming giant Circus Circus Enterprises in 1974. He served as chairman of Circus Circus between 1974 and 1994. Under his leadership Circus Circus developed numerous additional properties throughout Nevada, including the Excalibur and Luxor casinos in Las Vegas. Following his departure from Circus Circus, Bennett purchased the Sahara Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas in 1995 and operated it until his death in 2002.
WLester Ben Binion was an American gambling icon, career criminal, and convicted murderer who established illegal gambling operations in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas area. He would later relocate to Nevada, where gambling was legal, and open the successful Binion's Horseshoe casino in downtown Las Vegas.
WJack Benny Binion is an American businessman. Binion is the son of casino magnate Benny Binion and worked for his father at Binion's Horseshoe, a casino and hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.
WLonnie Theodore Binion, or Ted Binion, was a wealthy American gambling executive and one of the sons of famed Las Vegas casino magnate Benny Binion, owner of Binion's Horseshoe. Ted Binion's death has been a subject of controversy; girlfriend Sandra Murphy and her lover Rick Tabish were initially charged and convicted in Binion's death, but were later granted a new trial and acquitted on the murder charges.
WSamuel A. Boyd was an American entrepreneur, casino manager and developer. He was noted for introducing successful marketing, gambling and entertainment innovations into the casino gambling industry, as well as building one of the largest and most successful casino empires in the world.
WMark A. Brown is an American gaming industry executive known for serving as CEO of Trump Hotels and Casinos Inc. and president of The Venetian Macau, Sands Macau, and The Four Seasons Macau. In November 2010, Brown joined Wynn Resorts, Ltd in advance of the organization's multibillion-dollar Cotai Strip Macau project. In November 2014 Brown was named president and CEO of Imperial Pacific Ltd's $7.1 Billion casino resort project in Saipan.
WMike A. Caro is an American professional poker player, pioneer poker theorist, author of poker books, and casino executive.
WRobert Alan Cashell was an American businessman and politician. He served as the mayor of Reno, Nevada from 2002 to 2014. He served as the 28th Lieutenant Governor of Nevada from 1983 to 1987 and on the Nevada System of Higher Education Board of Regents from 1979 to 1982. He served as a board member for Station Casinos from June 17, 2011 until his death on February 11, 2020. He was a member of the Republican Party and a former member of the Democratic Party.
WCarl Cohen. He was a well-known executive in the gambling resort industry in Las Vegas, Nevada, in the 1940s through 1970s and is credited with playing an important role in the development of Las Vegas as a premier resort destination. He began his career as a bookie and operator in illegal gambling clubs operated by the Mayfield Road Mob in Cleveland, Ohio. Moving to Las Vegas, he became casino manager for the El Rancho Vegas in the 1940s and the Sands Hotel and Casino in the 1950s; he also had a controlling interest in both resorts. He advanced to senior vice president of the Sands and, in 1973, became senior vice president of the newly opened MGM Grand Hotel. He gained national notoriety for a 1967 altercation with Frank Sinatra at the Sands, in which he responded to the singer's drunken and aggressive behavior by punching him in the mouth and knocking the caps off his front teeth. Cohen is the father of American actor and film director, Corey Allen.
WJay Cohen is the co-founder and former CEO of World Sports Exchange (WSEX), an online gambling company.
WPaul "Skinny" D'Amato also known as "Mr. Atlantic City", was the owner of the 500 Club in Atlantic City, New Jersey, from the 1940s until the club burned down in 1973.
WJack Entratter, nicknamed "Mr. Entertainment", was an American business executive. He is best known for management positions at the Copacabana nightclub in New York City in the 1940s and early 1950s, and at the iconic Sands Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas from the early 1950s. He is closely associated with Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack in the history of Las Vegas, Nevada.
WLorenzo Joseph Fertitta is an Italian-American entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist. He is chairman of Fertitta Capital, director of Red Rock Resorts Inc. and former CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
WDaniel Gilbert is an American businessman, investor and philanthropist. He is the co-founder of Quicken Loans, founder of Rock Ventures, and owner of the National Basketball Association's Cleveland Cavaliers. Gilbert owns several sports franchises, including the American Hockey League's Cleveland Monsters, and the NBA G League's Cleveland Charge. He operates the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland, Ohio, home to the Cavaliers and Monsters. As of April 17, 2021, Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimated his net worth at US$37.6 billion, making him the 36th richest person in the world.
WGary M. Green is a musician, author, television host, gaming consultant and entrepreneur.
WHoward Robard Hughes Jr. was an American business magnate, investor, record-setting pilot, engineer, film director, and philanthropist, known during his lifetime as one of the most influential and financially successful individuals in the world. He first became prominent as a film producer, and then as an important figure in the aviation industry. Later in life, he became known for his eccentric behavior and reclusive lifestyle—oddities that were caused in part by his worsening obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), chronic pain from a near-fatal plane crash, and increasing deafness.
WKerkor "Kirk" Kerkorian was an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. He was the president and CEO of Tracinda Corporation, his private holding company based in Beverly Hills, California. Kerkorian was one of the important figures in the shaping of Las Vegas and, with architect Martin Stern Jr. described as the "father of the mega-resort". He built the world's largest hotel in Las Vegas three times: the International Hotel, the MGM Grand Hotel (1973) and the MGM Grand (1993). He purchased the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movie studio in 1979.
WSarann Knight-Preddy was an American business leader and gaming pioneer in the U.S. state of Nevada. In 1950, she became the "first and only woman of color to receive a gaming license" in the state. She was the co-founder of a node of the Democratic Club in Las Vegas.
WEdward Levinson was an American criminal and gambling operator.
WMatthew 'Matt' Maddox is CEO of Wynn Resorts, Ltd., the American publicly traded developer and operator of higher-end hotels and casinos.
WDavid Merrick was a prolific Tony Award-winning American theatrical producer.
WIrving Moskowitz was an American physician, businessman, and activist. His activism, in part, sought to create a Jewish majority in Palestinian Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem by purchasing land.
WSam Nazarian is an Persian American businessman, investor and philanthropist. He is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of SBE Entertainment Group.
WCraig Hart Neilsen was an American gaming industry executive who founded Ameristar Casinos, Inc. and formed the Craig H. Neilsen Foundation to fund scientific research and quality of life programs for people living with spinal cord injuries.
WPeter Vincent "Cactus Pete" Piersanti was an American hotel and casino promoter active in Idaho and Nevada from the 1940s to the 1980s. He is credited as one of the main founders of the community of Jackpot, Nevada, in the 1950s. He is namesake of two Nevada casinos he owned at different points in his career, Cactus Pete's casino in Jackpot and Cactus Jack's Casino in Carson City.
WGary Primm is a casino developer. He is the former chairman and chief executive of Primm Valley Resorts.
WBlake L. Sartini is an American entrepreneur in the Nevada gaming and entertainment industry.
WBenjamin "Bugsy" Siegel was an American mobster who was a driving force behind the development of the Las Vegas Strip. Siegel not only was influential within the Jewish mob but, along with his friend and fellow gangster Meyer Lansky, also held significant influence within the Italian-American Mafia and the largely Italian-Jewish National Crime Syndicate. Described as handsome and charismatic, he became one of the first front-page celebrity gangsters.
WRobert Edward Stupak was a Las Vegas casino owner and entrepreneur. He was also a poker player, winning titles at the World Series of Poker and the Super Bowl of Poker. He also competed on the World Poker Tour, and various other tournaments, as well as cash games, including High Stakes Poker on GSN. He once played a computer for half a million dollars and won.
WDonald John Trump is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
WDelbert Eugene Webb was an American real estate developer, and a co-owner of the New York Yankees baseball club. He is known for founding and developing the retirement community of Sun City, Arizona, and for many works of his firm, Del E. Webb Construction Company.
WWilliam Richard "Billy" Wilkerson was the founder of The Hollywood Reporter, a real estate developer in Las Vegas and owner of such nightclubs as Ciro's. His series of columns known as "Billy's List" helped to initiate the red scare that led to the Hollywood blacklist.
WStephen Alan Wynn is an American real estate developer and art collector. He is known for his involvement in the American luxury casino and hotel industry. Early in his career he oversaw the construction and operation of several notable Las Vegas and Atlantic City hotels, including the Golden Nugget, the Golden Nugget Atlantic City, The Mirage, Treasure Island, the Bellagio, and Beau Rivage in Mississippi, and he played a pivotal role in the resurgence and expansion of the Las Vegas Strip in the 1990s. In 2000, Wynn sold his company, Mirage Resorts, to MGM Grand Inc., resulting in the formation of MGM Mirage. Wynn later took his company Wynn Resorts public in an initial public offering and was Wynn Resorts' CEO and Chairman of the Board until February 6, 2018, when he announced his resignation. He is a prominent donor to the Republican Party, and was the finance chair of the Republican National Committee from January 2017 to January 2018, when he resigned amid sexual misconduct allegations.