Steve Wynn walked out of the company that bore his name for the final time on February 6th, 2018. He was 76 years old, worth $3. 1 billion, and widely credited with transforming Las Vegas from a desert outpost into a global entertainment capital. Three weeks earlier, he had appeared untouchable.
His fall took 21 days after a career that spanned 50 years. Born Stephen Allan Weinberg in 1942 in New Haven, Connecticut, Wynn grew up in Utica, New York, where his father ran a chain of bingo halls along the East Coast. The family changed their surname to Wynn while Steve was a teenager. He studied English literature at the University of Pennsylvania, but in 1963 his father died of complications from heart surgery, leaving the 21-year-old to take over the family business.
He ran the bingo halls for four years before selling everything in 1967 and moving to Las Vegas with $75,000 and his wife, Elaine. Las Vegas in 1967 was still largely controlled by organized crime. The Flamingo, the Sands, and the Desert Inn were beautiful fronts with showgirls and Frank Sinatra, but the money flowed through counting rooms and back east in briefcases. Wynn recognized that the mob era was ending and that corporations were beginning to view gambling as legitimate business.
He bought a stake in the Frontier Hotel, learned the industry from the inside, and in 1971 acquired a controlling interest in the Golden Nugget, a modest downtown casino. Within five years, he had turned it into one of the most successful casinos in downtown Las Vegas and earned the nickname “boy wonder. ”
He opened a second Golden Nugget in Atlantic City in 1978, shortly after New Jersey legalized gambling. The property succeeded immediately, and by the early 1980s Wynn owned two of the most profitable casinos in America.
But he had larger ambitions for the Strip, where aging properties and outdated designs still carried mob pedigrees. The Mirage opened on November 22nd, 1989, at a cost of $630 million, making it the most expensive casino ever constructed at the time. Investors were nervous about the budget, but Wynn was not building a casino as much as a destination. The property featured a volcano that erupted every 15 minutes after dark, a tropical rainforest with live parrots in the lobby, white tigers visible from the main floor, a lagoon-style pool complex, celebrity chef restaurants, and a Cirque du Soleil show.
The old Las Vegas was about gambling, drinking, and cheap buffets. The Mirage was about spectacle and luxury, with a casino as part of the experience rather than the entire point. The model worked, and the property became the most profitable casino in Las Vegas, prompting a wave of mega-resorts across the Strip within five years. Wynn opened Treasure Island in 1993, and then Bellagio in 1998 at a cost of $1.
6 billion. The project included an 8-acre lake with 1,200 choreographed water jets that cost $40 million alone, a fine art gallery, a Picasso restaurant, and a Cirque du Soleil water show. Wynn filled the gallery with paintings from his personal collection, including works by Renoir, Monet, Van Gogh, Cézanne, and Matisse, worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The message was clear: Las Vegas was no longer just trashy entertainment; it was sophisticated and cultured.
By the early 2000s, Wynn had sold his casino empire to MGM for $6. 6 billion and immediately began planning his next project. Wynn Las Vegas opened in 2005 at a cost of $2. 7 billion, followed by Encore in 2008 at another $2.
3 billion. By this point, Wynn was competing with five-star hotels in Paris, London, and Hong Kong rather than other casinos. Wynn Resorts also expanded internationally, opening Wynn Macau in 2006, which quickly became the financial engine of the entire company, and Wynn Palace in 2016, a $3 billion property on the Cotai Strip. By 2017, the company operated five properties in two countries, employed 25,000 people, and generated more than $4 billion in annual revenue.
The public persona Wynn cultivated over five decades was carefully managed. He wore expensive suits, collected art worth hundreds of millions, and spoke about beauty and creating experiences. He donated to politicians on both sides and was photographed with presidents. He was the visionary who reinvented Las Vegas.
Behind that image were warning signs that rarely reached the public. In 1998, Wynn Resorts paid a manicurist named Kimberly Kennan $500,000 to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit, which included a non-disclosure agreement. In 2005, the company paid an unnamed employee $1 million after allegations of sexual misconduct, again with a non-disclosure agreement. In 2014, another employee received $250,000 under the same pattern.
The board of directors knew about some settlements; the legal department handled others quietly. On January 27th, 2018, The Wall Street Journal published an article titled “Dozens of People Recount Pattern of Sexual Misconduct by Las Vegas Mogul Steve Wynn. ” Based on interviews with more than 150 people, the article detailed allegations spanning multiple decades. It described a pattern in which Wynn allegedly pressured female employees into performing sexual acts, offered promotions or raises in exchange for sexual favors, and created an environment where women who worked in his spas, salons, or on his personal staff felt they could not say no without risking their jobs.
One former manicurist described giving Wynn a manicure at his office when he allegedly pressured her into performing a sexual act. She said she felt trapped, complied, and was paid $750 afterward. Another employee described being summoned to Wynn’s villa where he allegedly exposed himself and pressured her into performing oral sex. She reported the incident, was moved to a different department, and later received a seven-figure settlement payment with a non-disclosure agreement.
Multiple former salon employees described a system where female workers were effectively required to be available to Wynn for massages or personal services beyond professional boundaries. According to the Journal, the company’s internal mechanisms, including executives and lawyers who arranged settlements and handled non-disclosure agreements, enabled the behavior to continue for years. The total amount Wynn Resorts had paid in settlements was estimated at more than $7 million, with documented cases dating back to the 1970s. Wynn issued a statement the same day, calling the allegations “preposterous” and saying they were part of a campaign by his ex-wife Elaine to damage his reputation during their divorce proceedings.
He denied ever behaving inappropriately with employees. The company’s board announced an investigation and hired an outside law firm. The financial damage was immediate. Two days after the article published, Wynn Resorts stock dropped 10%, and the company lost $2.
2 billion in market value in a single trading session. Wynn’s personal net worth decreased by approximately $400 million within 48 hours. Regulators in Nevada and Massachusetts launched their own investigations, and calls for Wynn to resign started within a week. He refused, repeating his denial and saying he would fight to clear his name.
On February 6th, 2018, ten days after the Journal article, Steve Wynn resigned as chief executive officer and chairman of Wynn Resorts. The company announced his departure with a brief press release. Wynn issued a statement saying he had become the focus of an avalanche of negative publicity and that his presence was a distraction. He sold his entire stake in the company, approximately 12% worth about $2 billion, over the following months, severing all formal ties to the business that bore his name.
The aftermath involved multiple simultaneous investigations. The Massachusetts Gaming Commission spent months reviewing documents and interviewing witnesses. In April 2019, they concluded that Wynn Resorts executives had failed to disclose multiple allegations against Wynn during the licensing process. The commission imposed a $35 million fine, the largest in Massachusetts gaming history, but allowed the company to keep its license and open the Boston Harbor property.
The Nevada Gaming Control Board found that Wynn had behaved inconsistently with the responsibilities of a gaming license holder but imposed no sanctions since Wynn had already resigned and sold his shares. In 2020, Wynn Resorts agreed to pay $20 million to settle SEC charges that it failed to properly investigate and disclose allegations against Wynn, without admitting wrongdoing. His divorce from Elaine Wynn, ongoing since 2010, reached a settlement in 2018 with undisclosed terms. Multiple civil lawsuits were filed by former employees; some settled quickly, others dragged on for years.
Wynn continued to deny all allegations. His net worth dropped from $3. 1 billion to approximately $2 billion between January and March 2018. Wynn retreated from public life.
The art collection once worth over $700 million was substantially sold off. His name was removed from some industry awards, and some recipients of his philanthropy quietly returned or redirected donations. The properties kept his name because rebranding every sign and reference was too expensive. The company survived without him, recovered within two years, and eventually reached new stock price highs.
Wynn Resorts revenue in 2023 exceeded $6 billion. Now 83 years old, Wynn lives primarily in Palm Beach, Florida, in a mansion valued at $60 million. His net worth remains approximately $3 billion despite hundreds of millions spent on legal fees, settlements, and divorce costs. He has disappeared from public view and continues to maintain that the allegations are false and motivated by his ex-wife.
Two truths exist simultaneously: he transformed Las Vegas and changed the casino industry forever, and dozens of women accused him of misconduct over four decades. The empire survived. The reputation did not.
He kept the money but lost everything else that mattered.