Boyd gaming executive is dealt a new role

ATLANTIC CITY - Sam Boyd made a huge bet on Las Vegas in the early 1950s by investing in a few local casinos there.

He and his son, Bill, formed their own gambling company in 1974, and over the next three-plusdecades, Boyd Gaming Corp. would grow to become one of the nation's largest.

It is credited by many for changing Atlantic City for the better when it opened the trendsetting Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa there in 2003. Every new casino operator coming into the seaside resort since then has cited the Borgata as its model.

"I think it's wonderful," said Bill Boyd, now 76, who stepped down as chief executive officer Jan. 1 to assume a newly created position - executive chairman of Boyd Gaming. "Nowhere can you be prouder than to have other people trying to emulate what you have done."

In his new role, Boyd visits employees at Boyd casinos throughout the country and gives one-hour informal sessions on the company's history and heritage. And he chats up customers.

"I really wanted to do something different - kind of go back to do things that I used to do when we were a smaller company," said Boyd during one visit last month to the Borgata. "When you're smaller, you are able to do a lot better in terms of getting to know the employees and customers.

"But as we grew, it became more and more difficult."

Boyd Gaming's annual revenue of $2 billion last year ranked it as the fourth-largest gaming company in the United States behind Harrah's Entertainment Inc., MGM Mirage, and Penn National Gaming Inc.

It owns 17 casinos in seven states, including Nevada, Mississippi, Illinois and New Jersey.

Boyd's decision to step down as CEO this year comes at a critical time for the gambling industry. A tough economy has depressed most U.S. gaming stocks. Atlantic City - home to Boyd's biggest revenue generator, the Borgata - is undergoing a dramatic transformation and facing intense regional competition. And Boyd Gaming is in the midst of building its first megacasino resort - the $4.8 billion Echelon on the Las Vegas Strip - to solidify its place among the industry's heavyweights.

"We are at the beginning of a transformational new chapter in our company's history," Boyd said when announcing his new position last summer, "making this an ideal time for a new person to assume the chief executive role."

Boyd's successor, Keith Smith, 47, said: "More than anything else, Bill taught me how to deal with people. He taught me to lead by treating employees with trust, dignity and respect."

Grandfatherly with bifocals, Boyd comes across as mild-mannered and low key. He's a cigar afficionado. He likes to be called Bill by his staff and customers. He does not wear designer suits.

When not working, Boyd can often be found courtside at home basketball games of the Runnin' Rebels of the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, his alma mater.

The law school at UNLV is named after Boyd, a former lawyer. UNLV's football stadium - the Sam Boyd Stadium - is named after his father.

With $80 in his pocket, Sam Boyd moved his wife and son from California to Las Vegas in 1941 and began working there as a table-games dealer earning $6 to $8 a day.

With $6,000 in savings and $10,000 he borrowed, Sam Boyd bought a 1 percent share in the Sahara Hotel in 1952. Later he made a 3.5 percent investment in the Mint casino. The Boyd family later bought the Eldorado Casino in nearby Henderson, Nev., and entered a venture to develop the Union Plaza - which became the first casino in Las Vegas to hire women as blackjack dealers.

A year after Sam and Bill Boyd formed the Boyd Group in 1974, they built their first casino, the California Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. The property catered heavily to Hawaiians - its niche market.

"That was the first highlight of the company's existence," Boyd proudly told a gathering of Borgata employees last month.

Four years later, the state of Nevada appointed the firm to operate the Stardust Resort & Casino during license-revocation hearings. In 1985, the Boyd Group acquired the Stardust and the Fremont Hotel & Casino, also in Las Vegas.

"The Stardust was the one that got us started," Boyd recalled. "When it opened, it was a pretty significant Strip hotel."

Sam Boyd passed away in January 1993 - the same year the Boyd Group went public. That year, it became Boyd Gaming Corp. and began trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Boyd shares closed at $20.42, down 31 cents, or 1.5 percent, on the New York Stock exchange today.

Over the next decade, the company would grow rapidly, making inroads in the Midwest in places such as Mississippi, Indiana and Louisiana, before its defining move in Atlantic City in 2003 with the Borgata.

In a blockbuster merger in February 2004, Boyd Gaming acquired Coast Casinos Inc. in a $1.3 billion deal that added four Las Vegas casinos to its portfolio.

Bill Boyd was the CEO of Boyd Gaming for 33 years.

"He has a slow, but steady, management strategy," said gambling analyst Andrew Zarnett of Deutsche Bank AG. "He's not trying to conquer everything in one day. He takes small steps before taking big steps."

Before the golden-hued Borgata's debut in July 2003 in Atlantic City's Marina District, the seaside resort had not gotten a new casino in 13 years.

"Borgata reshaped Atlantic City," said Joe Weinert, senior vice president of Spectrum Gaming Group L.L.C., of Linwood, N.J. "There's no other way to put it."

The Borgata reflects "Bill Boyd's vision, and also his doggedness . . . to see it through," Weinert said.

Gambling mogul Steve Wynn partnered with Boyd Gaming in May 1996 to develop the Borgata. During the predevelopment phase, MGM bought Wynn's Mirage Resorts Inc. in May 2000, and MGM Mirage became Boyd's partner on the project. The new partnership decided to expand it from a $750 million casino with 1,200 hotel rooms to a $1.1 billion Las Vegas-style megacasino with 2,000 rooms.

The Borgata has become the benchmark for Atlantic City.

When Revel Entertainment Group L.L.C. announced its $2.5 billion casino for the Boardwalk last year, it described it as "Borgata-like." So did Pinnacle Entertainment Inc. and developer Curtis Bashaw of their proposed $1-billion-plus casinos there.

Boyd is also credited for shaping the Las Vegas Strip, where Boyd Gaming owns nine casinos and caters heavily to locals.

"Bill Boyd is bedrock in this industry," said Terry Lanni, chairman and CEO of MGM Mirage, which has plans for a $5 billion supercasino next to the Borgata. "The success modern gaming corporations enjoy today is due, in no small part, to the leadership, integrity and perseverance Bill demonstrated years ago. Without this foundation, Las Vegas would not be what it is today."

With his legacy intact, Boyd looks ahead.

"We love the business. We want to keep growing," he said, as he recently walked the Borgata's casino floor and shook hands with customers.

"You go through these economic times that are difficult," he said. "But I've always looked at the long term, not the short term, because we're in this for the long term."