Successful casinos don’t just happen by chance. They are created from the ground up. The experience is meticulously tailored and painfully constructed. Here are some of the books about incredible entrepreneurs that you can try books about the incredible entrepreneurs
Behind the curtains, the stage is awash with brilliant marketing strategies, gang wars, and the construction of dreams.
Let’s peek through the looking glass with the help of these books about the success stories of casino brands and owners. These are some stories from the fascinating world of Las Vegas and the people who made it all possible.
Book About the Incredible Entrepreneur: The High Roller Experience
The High Roller Experience is the story of how the world’s most famous casinos became successful.
Most people don’t realize the tremendous work and planning that goes into turning a giant building into a field of dreams. The High roller experience reveals the magician’s secrets.
The marketing genius who turned Caesars into the world-famous name it is today discusses the ways in which they molded the experiences.
This may be a book about marketing, but it is also about how dreams are created and how magic exists.
The writer and market mogul behind this book used data-based research and created a coherent narrative that swept everyone off their feet.
Casinos in this book are a mere example of how client-centric marketing and business, supported by data-driven strategy, can genuinely change the game.
This book by David Norton is a must-read for anyone who wants to market their business, work, or even themselves.
Simply put, Norton’s book is for everyone. Everyone needs help to create magic sometimes, and this book does just that.
Winner Takes All: How Casino Mogul Steve Wynn Won-and Lost-the High Stakes Gamble to Own Las Vegas
More than slots and table games, building veritable institutes like the Bellagio while struggling with debts was an unmatched gamble. However, like winning the pot at a poker table with the worst possible hands, Steve Wynn single-handedly managed to create landmarks in Las Vegas that are credited to have brought life back into the Strip.
However, this book is not simply the story of Wynn’s high-stakes risks in creating his businesses. This is also the story of the 2 other casino moguls enmeshed in a competition of money, drugs, and women, in the fast lane.
The writer Christina Binkley charts the history of Las Vegas itself to the time Wynn steps down from his position in the wake of the MeToo movement.
This is a book that is for all those who want a peek behind the curtain at the over-the-top lifestyle and business sense of these famous casinos and their owners.
From Van Gogh’s and Picassos to the 80s rock and roll lifestyle, this has the drama, the style, and the flair of a classic gangster movie.
Whether you like casinos or not, this book by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Christina Binkley is a story that allows everyone to see how megaliths are built, how empires fall, and how power can corrupt.
The Gambler: How Penniless Dropout Kirk Kerkorian Became the Greatest Deal Maker in Capitalist History
The mystique of movies and the glamour of casinos have always painted an incredible account of the Las Vegas strip.
From Rom Coms to heist movies, Hollywood eventually ends up at the Strip. The gambler is a real-life story of Kirk Kerkorian, who brought those two businesses together.
Funnily enough, his life reads exactly like a Hollywood blockbuster. He came from nothing, but by the time he died, he owned most of Vegas and bought and sold the MGM studios, transforming the movie business forever.
Kirk Kerkorian was a world war 2 pilot whose deals were as daring and inscrutable as his poker hands. He became a movie mogul, a casino giant, and a businessman whose face was on the Forbes list of billionaires– all because of his uncanny capacity to convince people and make deals.
The man was a legend, albeit a mysterious one.
From Elvis Presley, Melissa Womer, to Mike Tyson, his friends were famous, rich, and known faces in daily media. But Kerkorian was private, and no one could get much about him to sell the papers.
The author William C. Rempel, an investigative reporter, delves deep into the mogul’s secretive past, unearthing his life for us.
From war records to friends’ testimonies, we see a legacy forming, one of razor-sharp intellect and incredible entrepreneurship. This book is for anyone who needs inspiration or wants to understand more about how businesses work.
Kirk Kerkorian reimagined and reinvented the business of luxury and entertainment. If nothing else, we can all learn how dreams can be built from the ground up, even if you think you are not all that.
At the Sands: The Casino That Shaped Classic Las Vegas, Brought the Rat Pack Together, and Went Out With a Bang
The sands weren’t just a casino. It was an institution. In the 1950s, the Sands shaped Las Vegas to be what it is today.
From mob Kingpins to Frank Sinatra and even Ronald Reagan, everyone who was worth anything had a seat in this casino. This was the place that not only turned Las Vegas into dreamland but also made gambling reputable.
In the 50s, casinos were thought of as a front for gangs, and many casinos had a horrible reputation.
Despite being financially supported by mob bosses like Frank Costello, Meyer Lansky, and others, the Sands managed to single-handedly bring glamour into the casino business in such a way that, for the average American, it turned into part of the American Dream.
Author David G. Schwartz writes a compelling account of the Copa that brought the most famous musicians of the time and the thrilling adventures of the Sands as it grew to become the country’s most coveted stage, till the day it all Blew up quite literally.
“At the Sands’ is a book about history and how culture is shaped. It is a piece of American culture that most prefer to leave out of the annals of history, but it goes a long way to explain why and how the cultural markers we see in modern America all came about to be.
This is a book for anyone who likes history, culture, business, page-turning thrillers, or real-life drama.
Grandissimo: The First Emperor of Las Vegas
In the 70s, one of the most familiar faces of Vegas was built- the Ceaser’s palace. Grandissimo is the story of the man who dared to dream it up. This man was Jay Sarno.
Sarno created the blueprint of Modern Las Vegas and the modern style of casinos.
He taught the strip to deck up casinos to offer games and gift an experience. He was the first to understand how casinos could become safe havens for people to leave their worries behind.
He also created the idea of casinos having themes. Caesar’s palace had a greek theme, which brought everything together.
People walked through the doors of caesar’s palace and were transported into a different world. If the Sands brought entertainment and glamour into the world of casinos, Sarno’s projects reimagined casinos as a land of dreams.
Until Sarno, the biggest draws to casinos were games or entertainment. People came into simple, bland spaces to enjoy a good dinner and catch an exciting show.
Caesar’s proved that the building itself could be a character in the Grand story of Vegas.
Though Sarno ultimately lost it all, this is something that most casinos still follow today, and online casinos are starting to take notes.
The author David G. Schwartz writes a compelling account of the entrepreneurship journey that Jay Sarno embarked fearlessly upon.
On the way, we also get glimpses of Vegas’ history as ‘the last frontier. This book is for anyone who thinks a task is too daunting.
Because if anything, Jay Sarno proved that even if you fail, your footsteps might guide generations.
