Michael Gaughan wields as much influence in the Las Vegas gaming community as the chief executives who oversee some of the Strip’s largest publicly traded resorts.
And the 81-year-old Gaughan carries that respect with just a single 2,100-room hotel-casino that sits on 56 acres along Las Vegas Boulevard, 6 miles south of what is considered the Strip’s southern border.
It only took about two years for Gaughan to realize that he would not be comfortable in the corporate gaming world after he sold his four-property Coast Casinos to Boyd Gaming for $1.3 billion in 2004. He took a seat on Boyd’s board and agreed to oversee the final construction phases of the then-South Coast resort, which was nearly 70 percent complete.
Gaughan immediately had seller’s remorse.
