Las Vegas has a colorful history, to say the least. I’ve read several books about it and I knew that Jay Sarno was the name of the man who created Caesars Palace (which opened in 1966) at the tail-end of the mob era in Las Vegas. That was the limit of my knowledge about Jay Sarno.
David G. Schwartz, Director of Gaming Research at UNLV, has written a biography about Sarno called Grandissimo: The First Emperor of Las Vegas. Richard Munchkin and I decided to schedule him to appear on our Gambling with an Edge radio show partly because it was a good excuse for both of us to read the book and learn more about a prominent figure in Las Vegas history. And since I read the book well enough to ask questions about it on the radio interview, it gives me enough information to share with you.
Jay Sarno was a rather average-looking man with big dreams and a very engaging personality. Evidence of the latter is that his wife, Joyce, was a real beauty. Usually average looking guys don’t end up with the gorgeous women — unless the guy is wealthy. Sarno was just beginning his hotel-building career at the time he met Joyce. At that time, he had achieved very modest success and not much money. He did, however, have big dreams.
When Sarno first visited Las Vegas, he felt the hotels in town weren’t particularly exciting. His belief was that Las Vegas should provide an escape from everyday life, primarily for men, but also for women. Getting ahead of myself a little bit, when he finally built Caesars, the restaurant Nero’s featured scantily dressed women who would rub the shoulders and temples of the male customers. This kind of experience wasn’t available anywhere else in town — at least in public restaurants!
It’s expensive to build a luxurious hotel casino. As I mentioned earlier, Sarno himself wasn’t a wealthy man. At that time, banks weren’t investing in Las Vegas casinos. One of the funding sources Sarno ended up using was the Teamsters Pension Fund. He had become friends with Jimmy Hoffa and so long as Hoffa was in charge, Sarno could get all the financing he wanted. Exactly how the Teamsters and the mob of that era were similar and how they were different is not a clear picture.
Hoffa had his own problems. Because of Hoffa’s connections with organized crime, Robert Kennedy, as Attorney General of the United States, made putting him away a top priority. And the Feds were eventually successful at this. Unfortunately for Sarno, the new management of the Teamsters wasn’t quite as friendly to him as Hoffa was.
There were mobsters regularly staying at Caesars Palace, and most likely a lot of skimming was going on — sending money back East to various mob organizations. Sarno’s relationship with Hoffa was well known and the Nevada gaming regulators weren’t particularly happy with Sarno running Caesars. Eventually he was sort of eased out — although he maintained privileges there until he died.
Jay Sarno was a compulsive gambler — often winning or (mostly) losing tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars at craps or golf. He was a man with gluttonous appetites for good food, wine, and women. He thought that Vegas casinos should be built for guys like him.
The second casino he built was Circus Circus — again partly with Teamster money. Part of the idea for this casino was to give the kids something to do while mom and dad gambled. The property opened in 1968 without a hotel. Although popular, skimming made the casino lose money. Eventually Sarno was forced out. Near the end, he tried to bribe an IRS agent to allow certain deductions — although a case could be made the agent actively solicited the bribe. Whether this was entrapment or fraud, it caused Sarno to lose management privileges at Circus Circus.
One of his dreams was to develop a casino named Grandissimo, which was to be built on Industrial Boulevard (now Dean Martin Drive). He died in the early 1980s before he was able to begin building it. This hotel would have been the forerunner to the luxurious hotels like Mirage, Bellagio, and Venetian which would come along a decade or so later.
Steve Wynn worked for Sarno for a while and was inspired by many of his ideas. Wynn has built many properties in Vegas, with several Sarno-esque touches.
Sarno is widely credited with beginning the luxury hotel phase for Las Vegas casinos. His dreams were big, but not always tempered by reality. Vegas today would be a lot different had Jay Sarno not come along.
We’ll be talking with David G. Schwartz about his book on Thursday, December 5, from 7-8 p.m. Vegas time on radio 1230 a.m. locally or on www.klav1230am.com from anywhere you can get Internet reception. If you miss the live broadcast, it will be archived “forever” here.