According to El Cortez General Manager Mike Nolan, while the sale was approved by the Nevada Gaming Control Board, as of this writing, it hasn’t yet closed. He downplayed it as "more or less estate planning for the family."
Gaughan’s shares will be redistributed among his business partners, who include Nolan, Kenneth Epstein and son Lawrence, and El Cortez CFO Joe Woody. The elder Epstein has been Gaughan’s business associate for more than 50 years and told the Control Board, "Next to my father, he is my most important mentor." Kenneth Epstein will be the majority shareholder in the reconfigured El Cortez ownership.
Does slightly different ownership portend a different El Cortez?
"No, no, no [changes]," Nolan said. "We’re in the middle of a considerable amount of remodeling," to be followed by unspecified projects that Nolan says were on the drawing boards before Gaughan sold his stake in the venerable hotel-casino, which opened in 1941 before Fremont Street was paved all the way out to Sixth Street. The current remodeling includes a makeover of nearby Ogden House into El Cortez Cabaña Suites.
Nor is Gaughan disappearing from sight. "Jackie stays here, lives here, eats here, plays here," said Nolan, "and is still the spokesman for the El Cortez."
