Without him, though, new resorts would have tended more to the Excalibur than Caesars Palace. With or without Wynn, the Las Vegas Strip would have grown in the 1990s.

His leaving Wynn Resorts is unquestionably a big deal. The Mirage changed the paradigm of what a casino resort should be, paving the way for the mega-resort era of the 1990s. Certainly without the resorts he built-Golden Nugget, Mirage, Treasure Island, Bellagio, Wynn, and Encore-Las Vegas would look much different today. He’s widely hailed as the man who created modern Las Vegas.