Don Laughlin passed away in Laughlin, Nevada, on October 22. He died where he had lived 57 years of his life: in the Riverside Resort Hotel and Casino. The memorial service will be held on November 10, also at the Riverside. Don was the Riverside and he was the town.
Laughlin came to Nevada in the 1950s. In 1964 he purchased a small motel at the southern tip of Nevada. It was called South Pointe and for a time in the 1940s the motel and café had catered to miners and construction workers. The workers left and the town dried up and died. It stayed that way until Don Laughlin flew over it and saw possibilities. There was a river, pleasant weather except in the midst of summer, and it was close to tourist destinations in Arizona and California.
Laughlin was a true gaming pioneer. Like his fellow pioneers Sam Boyd, Benny Binion, Jackie Gaughan, Jay Sarno, Bill Harrah, Warren Nelson, Si Redd, and John Ascuaga, he was not a native Nevadan, but they were all already gamblers. Nevada was friendlier to them than their home states we. They came from all over the country to Nevada to escape the constant pressure from the law. Some ran blackjack games, keno and bingo, and craps; others, like Don Laughlin, operated slot machines. Although over the years he waited tables and dealt 21 around Las Vegas, slot machine was his mother tongue.
Laughlin came from Minnesota. There is an oft-repeated story about Don as a young man. In the cold Minnesota winters, he trapped to make money. The ambitious and entrepreneurial youth took the money from selling furs and bought slot machines. As the legend would have it, by the time Laughlin was in the ninth grade, he had a profitable slot route, making as much as $500 a week. His high-school principal told Laughin he had to give up either the slots or school. “I said, ‘I’m making three times what you are, so I’m out the door,’” Laughlin told the Las Vegas Review-Journal in 2016.
After other ventures some in Las Vegas, Laughlin settled in the southern Nevada desert, across the Colorado River from Bullhead City, Arizona. According to Don, the road to South Pointe was dirt. The only way to Arizona was by boat. To facilitate mail delivery, the name of the town was changed to Laughlin. In time the road was paved and there was a bridge over the Colorado. Laughlin thought the town needed a bridge, so he paid to have it built.
The success of the Riverside drew other casino operators, Hilton, Harrah’s, and Boyd among them. Laughlin’s casino revenue and visitor volume grew slowly but steadily. It appeared that the town’s potential was unlimited. But then, in the 1990s, Arizona and New Mexico signed compacts with the states’ tribes. California later joined the list. Indian gaming arrived on the doorstep. Laughlin’s entire feeder market had been invaded.
The casinos, including the Riverside, did not fold, but they would never win back all of the customers they lost to Indian gaming. Still, revenue remained significant. In 1994, Laughlin casinos generated $484 million in revenue. In 2022, it was $500 million. By comparison, the Strip generated $5.7 billion in 1994 and $19.6 billion in 2022. The revenue for the entire state grew from $10.8 billion in 1994 to $29.9 billion in 2022. Laughlin did not die, but neither did it grow much.
Don Laughlin stayed in Laughlin and continued to profit; at the time of his death, his estate was estimated at $1 billion. Not bad for a kid from Minnesota with a trap line and a slot route.
Laughlin’s story is remarkable on many levels. It is the American dream: Boy works hard and prospers, and as a man is wealthy, loved, and celebrated. On another level, it is the story of a destination with an exclusive right to gambling that transitions to a destination that must fight over every tourist dollar with its neighbors. That is the tale for many places, Reno and Atlantic City for example. On yet another level, Don’s life reflects the change and evolution of the gaming industry.
In the early years of gaming, individuals like Laughlin could come to Nevada. They could get into the gaming industry and over time become major players. Those individuals opened such casinos as the Horseshoe, Mint, Caesars, Golden Nugget, Circus Circus, Union Plaza, El Cortez, and others. They built downtown Las Vegas, the neighborhood casinos, and even the first properties on the Strip. That time is over. Today, there is very little opportunity for people such as Don Laughlin or any of the other pioneers. The gaming industry is one of corporate giants. Even the Teamsters, Howard Hughes, and mobs could not have financed today’s casinos. It might be trite to say that with the passing of Don Laughlin, an era has passed, but it has.
