Casino Mogul Steve Wynn Lists $135 Million Beverly Hills Mansion. The sprawling 27,150-square-foot estate was originally built by Guess cofounder Maurice Marciano in the early 1990s. Billionaire real estate businessman and casino mogul Steve Wynn has put his renovated mansion in Beverly Hills up for sale for $135 million. DuPont Registry revealed that Wynn purchased the 27,000 square foot residence in 2015 for $48 million before spending several years remodelling both the interior and exterior.

Steve Wynn has been called the 'unofficial king of Las Vegas.' But these days, his business empire draws most of its riches from China.

The billionaire gaming magnate developed towering resorts such as the Bellagio, Treasure Island and Mirage, changing the face of the fabled Las Vegas Strip. In the most recent financial quarter, though, his company's businesses in the city generated less than a quarter of its total revenue.

The vast majority came from Macau, a tiny former Portuguese colony that's currently the only place in China where gambling is legal.

Wynn, the 76-year-old founder and CEO of Wynn Resorts(WYNN), now stands accused of sexual misconduct in a detailed investigation by the Wall Street Journal. The board of directors of his company has formed a special committee to investigate the allegations, which Wynn has denied.

For decades, the mogul has been a major figure in the world of gambling.

'Wynn was the first one [to build casinos where] when you walked in you had restaurants there. You had all kinds of shows,' said Richard McGowan, a Boston College professor who studies the gambling industry. 'He's the one who really turned it into total entertainment.'

Chinese high rollers

After reshaping Las Vegas in the 1990s, Wynn set his sights on the even bigger prize of the massive wealth being created by China's rapid economic rise.

Macau's gambling revenues overtook those of Las Vegas more than a decade ago. And Wynn made sure he was along for the ride.

'I was involved at the inception here,' he said in an interview with CNNMoney in Macau in 2016.

His company managed to secure one of the handful of casino licenses in the Chinese territory, opening its first resort there in 2006. An even bigger one, Wynn Palace, followed in 2016. Together they hold more than 700,000 square feet of casino space -- and the company is planning to expand that further.

Wynn Resorts latest earnings show how much it now relies on Chinese gamblers. Of the company's $1.7 billion in revenue in the last quarter of 2017, more than $1.3 billion came from Macau. While Wynn's business in Las Vegas declined slightly from a year earlier, in Macau it surged more than 40%.

It's not yet clear how the allegations against Wynn could affect his company's Asian business. The Hong Kong-listed shares of Wynn Macau(WYNMF), most of which are owned by Wynn Resorts, sank 6.5% on Monday. That followed a 10% plunge in the parent company's shares on Friday in the United States.

Wendy Wong, a spokeswoman for Macau's Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau, told CNNMoney on Monday that it has no plans to revoke Wynn Macau's license, which expires in 2022. But she said it hasn't decided yet whether to conduct an investigation into the allegations against Wynn.

Wynn Macau declined to comment beyond referring CNNMoney to statements on the matter by Wynn Resorts and Wynn himself, who is chairman and CEO of the Macau unit.

With Macau dominating its business, Wynn Resorts no longer controls many of the iconic properties the mogul developed in Las Vegas. It sold Mirage Resorts, which owned the Bellagio, Treasure Island and Mirage, to MGM Grand in 2000. Wynn Resorts still owns and operates Wynn Las Vegas and Encore in the city.

The company is also developing Wynn Boston Harbor in Everett, Massachusetts. The $2.1 billion project is scheduled to open in 2019, but following the allegations against Wynn, the state gaming regulator has said it is reviewing the license it issued.

From bingo to the Bellagio

Wynn's empire building has made him an extraordinarily rich man.

He's now worth $3.5 billion, according to Forbes. Wynn Resorts went public in 2002, and now has a market cap of more than $17 billion. Wynn has an 11.8% stake, according to the company's most recent SEC filings.

The tycoon is also handsomely paid for his work as CEO. His total compensation for 2016 came to $28.2 million. And over the past five years of reported income, his total compensation came to $111.6 million.

Wynn first entered the world of gambling when he took over his father's bingo parlors in Maryland. He moved to Las Vegas in 1967 with a stake in the Frontier Hotel, followed by a short stint as the owner of a wine and liquor distributor, Wynn said in a 2014 interview with the Hoover Institution's Peter Robinson.

Things picked up when Wynn scored a lucrative land deal via business mogul Howard Hughes. He parlayed that money into an investment in the Golden Nugget Casino.

Wynn's success in transforming the Golden Nugget into an elegant destination led to a string of new projects, each one increasingly opulent.

'Wynn is known for setting a standard -- very luxurious facilities that really set the bar for the industry very high,' said Clyde Barrow, a professor at the University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley, who specializes in gambling policy.

The Mirage, Wynn's first major casino on the Vegas Strip, opened in 1989. He then opened Treasure Island in 1993, and the Bellagio in 1998.

'Before the 1990s, what we now think of as the Strip basically didn't exist,' Barrow said.

Wynn brought Siegfried and Roy's magic act to the Mirage and installed fine art and a famous fountain show at the Bellagio.

Succession plan?

In its current form, the company remains centered around its founder.

'He's the one that's innovative,' McGowan said.

Hong Kong-based gambling analysts at investment firm Bernstein said they think Wynn's leadership 'would be extraordinarily difficult to replace if he were to step down.'

'There does not seem to be any clear succession plan at the company,' they wrote in a research note Monday. 'And without Mr. Wynn's guiding hand, the ability to ... limit the collateral damage from infighting that may evolve out of any Steve Wynn departure is very difficult to predict.'

-- Sherisse Pham, Chris Isidore and Qiaoqiao Yu contributed to this report.

Since sexual assault allegations in 2018, Steve Wynn retired from the gambling industry. Now, regulates in Nevada dispute if they have the right to ban him. In fact, the Nevada Gaming Control Board has been attempting to ban Wynn from further casino-related business in Nevada since October of 2019. In a recent court decision in November 2020, a state judge determined that the NGCB no longer has the right to make such decisions over Wynn.

A Nevada judge has ruled that Steve Wynn cannot be banned from the state’s gambling industry. ©quinntheislander/Pixabay

Prior to 2018, Steve Wynn Was A Titan In The Casino Industry

In 1989, Steve Wynn opened his first casino on the Las Vegas Strip: the Mirage Resort & Casino. At the time, a new casino hadn’t been opened on the strip in two decades, and Wynn intended to bring something different to Sin City: a level of glamour and prestige that had normally been left out of Las Vegas casino architecture.

The success of Wynn’s Mirage location led to the development of a number of other Wynn-branded properties, first around the US — in Atlantic City — and then abroad, as Wynn expanded his empire into Asian gambling capital Macau. By January 2018, Wynn was a powerful billionaire, with a prominent role in the Republican National Committee.

Then, Things Change

At the end of January in 2018, The Wall Street Journal — a leading American newspaper — published an alarming expose revealing decades of sexual misconduct allegations from both Wynn and Wynn Las Vegas President, Maurice Wooden. According to these claims, lawsuits had been filed and settled, often for millions of dollars.

According to the reports, an overwhelming number of female employees at the Wynn Las Vegas, largely working in the salon and spa, had faced sexual misconduct from Wynn. At least 13 women came forward stating that they had been sexually harassed and/or assaulted by Wynn, and had been aggressively discouraged from speaking out.

The Fallout Is Swift

Within a number of days, Steve Wynn had resigned his post as chair of the Republican National Committee, and Wynn stocks fall precipitously in the New York Stock Exchange. Just four days after the expose, the Nevada Gaming Control Board announced that it was beginning a comprehensive investigation into Wynn’s misconduct.

Ten days after the expose was published, Steve Wynn retired from his namesake brand. Despite Wynn’s resignation, the ensuing months — and now, years — see a number of lawsuits filed against Wynn, alleging breaches from insider trading to further allegations of violent sexual assault.

In October of 2019, the class action lawsuit against Wynn was underway. The main plaintiff in the case was Breanna Schrader, a massage therapist who had been employed by Wynn, who alleged that the company had a culture stemming from the very top of permitting sexual misconduct against female employees and silencing them from speaking out.

Nevada Gaming Control Board Has Been On It From The Jump

Since just four days after the initial assault allegations were reported in The Wall Street Journal in 2018, the Nevada Gaming Control Board has closely followed, investigated, and at times, prosecuted Wynn for his misconduct. This has spanned the last several years almost without cease.

In late November 2019, the Nevada Gaming Control Board brought its investigation to Elaine Wynn, the ex-wife of the former Vegas tycoon. According to their reports, Ms. Wynn had intentionally withheld critical information about her then-husband’s alleged misconduct to members of the Wynn Resorts board.

Since Fall 2019, Attempts To Ban Wynn Outright

The most dramatic step taken by the Nevada Gaming Control Board began in October 2019, when the regulatory body announced that it was seeking to wholly ban the gambling magnate from ever working in the Nevada gambling industry again. The commission also levied a significant fine against Wynn, filing a 23-page complaint.

Steve Wynn First Casino No Deposit

Included in the complaint were five central infractions the Nevada Gaming Commission believed had been perpetrated by Wynn, including his refusal to appear in person at an important investigatory hearing in September 2019. The complaint offered a scathing indictment of Wynn, declaring that he demonstrated dishonesty and a lack of integrity.

The Latest Development: Nevada Judge Rules Ban Impossible

Now, more than a year after the Nevada regulatory body first filed a motion to ban Wynn from further business in the state, a state judge has determined that such a ban is not possible. According to Clark County District Judge Adriana Escobar, the Nevada Gaming Commission does not have the right to make such a decision.

According to Judge Escobar’s decision, Steve Wynn has decisively retired from the gambling industry, and has effectively withdrawn any involvement he has with any gambling companies. As such, Wynn is not conducting business in Nevada and will not do so in the future, and the NGCB cannot ban him from the state.

Steve Wynn First Casino

Steve Wynn used to reside at his Las Vegas property, which could have made this kind of action legally viable. Since the allegations in 2018, however, Wynn has moved out of Nevada. The fact that he no longer lives in the state is a central reason why the local gambling commission no longer has jurisdiction over his future business decisions.

Nevada Gaming Commission Could Appeal This Decision

Steve Wynn First Casino Slots

According to reports about Judge Escobar’s ruling on the attempted ban, the regulatory body could still seek to overturn the decision by bringing the case to the Nevada State Supreme Court. It is not clear at this time whether the NGCB will continue to pursue this extreme, and perhaps final, step of their investigation.