Jackie Gaughan is very much Mr. Downtown Las Vegas. He is the principal owner of two anchor properties at the ends of the Fremont Street Experience: the Jackie Gaughan Plaza (formerly called the Union Plaza before he bought out his partners) where Fremont Street ends at Main Street and the El Cortez, a property built in 1941 and the oldest property in Las Vegas still bearing its original name. In between these gambling halls he owns the Western, the Gold Spike, and the Las Vegas Club. He operates only in downtown Las Vegas, where his five properties offer 37 percent of all the slot machines, 36 percent of the casino floor space, and 24 percent of the hotel rooms. He is a hands-on manager; he walks through each property every day, and he even lives in the penthouse of one of his casino-hotels – the El Cortez. The measure of his success is customer service.
Jackie Gaughan was born in Nebraska on 20 October 1920. He learned his gambling in the Midwest, and even today he especially caters to middle-class players from the Midwest. He is considered the biggest Nebraska Cornhusker football fan in Las Vegas. His grandfather had been a policeman who grew up in Ireland. His father strayed a bit from the line of law-abiding behavior – just a bit. He owned race horses, and he was a bookmaker. One of Jackie’s brothers was a bootlegger.
When Jackie was only sixteen years old and working as a messenger for other bookies, he started to take action on his own. He has been in the gambling business ever since. Soon he owned two bookie shops in Omaha. He also participated in casino gaming in the area. A change in the course of the Missouri River had left an enclave of Iowa on the Omaha side of the river. Therefore, the Iowa authorities had to travel an inconvenient distance to patrol the area. A wise entrepreneur established the Chez Paris – an illegal casino. It was run by Jackie’s uncle. Jackie participated in the business.
Gaughan attended Creighton University before he joined the Air Corp in World War II. His gambling activity did not skip a beat, as he was soon running his games on a base near Tonopah, Nevada. That assignment brought him close to Las Vegas, and in 1943 he visited the city, stayed at the El Cortez, and established some lifelong contacts. By 1943 he was married; his son Michael was born the same year. In 1946, after the war ended, he borrowed money from his mother to purchase a small stake in a little Fremont Street casino called the Boulder Club. He remained in Omaha, keeping his fingers in “the business” there until 1951. When he came back to Las Vegas, he purchased a small piece of the Flamingo, which he held until 1968.
His tale became one of working incredibly long hours at several properties and slowly acquiring shares of the businesses where he worked. He especially liked sports betting, and he started the first exclusive sports and race book in the downtown area. Sports betting was always a part of each of his ventures.
In 1959, he bought the Las Vegas Club, and in 1963 he acquired the El Cortez. In 1971 he joined with several other local interests – Sam Boyd, Frank Scott, Kell Houssels, and Walter Zick – to create the Union Plaza casino. This was the most expensive new property up to that time in the downtown – costing $20 million. It was also the largest, with over 500 rooms and a 66,000-square-foot gaming floor. It was themed as a railroad casino, because it actually was (and still is) the station for the railroad that ran through Las Vegas. In the early 1980s the property added a second tower with a convention center and another 500-plus rooms. Until the Golden Nugget added two towers and a convention center, the Union Plaza was the only convention property downtown. In 1990 Gaughan acquired full control of the Union Plaza and changed its name. By then he also had the Western and Gold Spike – two smaller downtown casino hotels.
As a hands-on customer-oriented casino owner-operator, Jackie Gaughan has been an innovator. If he did not invent the Las Vegas Fun Book (a coupon book with bargains such as low-cost meals, free souvenirs, and chances for double money bets), he certainly perfected it and made it a basic tool for promotions in the community. He also started a constant line of promotional giveaways. He discovered that there were “professional” contest players who seemed to win most of the prizes while his out-of-town players and other regulars were left out. So he devised a special contest that has become synonymous with the El Cortez – the Social Security number drawing. By definition, no player could have more than one entry in the contest, and the players would have to come in every day to check the prize list. He also developed what he calls the Season Pass for players who win jackpots on his machines. The pass holders are given three weeknights free at one of his hotels quarterly for the next twelve months. It keeps ’em coming back.
Jackie Gaughan is one of the “old-timers” of Las Vegas. His methods are tried and true, and they still work in the market he goes after. The new breed of corporate gamers looks at operations a little differently. Michael Gaughan, Jackie’s son, has moved his attention to the Strip and also to the edges of town where he appeals to a new kind of “local” gambler and tourist. He has partners in his Coast Casino’s operations. He also has a major riverboat in the St. Louis market. Michael Gaughan is college educated, holding a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Southern California, where he also studied computers. Computers drive Michael’s operations, but perhaps he is the bridge to the future, as he has not abandoned the basic lessons his father has taught – Michael talks the corporate game, but he walks the old timer walk with hands-on management. Despite the difference in their education, there is little doubt but that Michael is his father’s son.
Some time ago when I encountered Michael Gaughan at the Barbary Coast Casino in order to interview him for a customer service book, he was breathing hard and speaking rapidly in stop-and go-phrases. He had just completed his daily walkthrough of the casino, and he was reviewing and explaining the daily computerized report on each of his slot machines. He was indicating how each part of his property contributed to the bottom line, but mostly he was telling about the individual players he had just greeted by name. He told how he was striving to keep them happy and to keep them coming back time and time again. It was the kind of personalized service that one would not expect at a casino on the Las Vegas Strip, let alone a casino on the major corner of the Strip – Flamingo Road and Las Vegas Boulevard South.
Michael Gaughan carries on a strong family tradition – his younger brother works with his father’s properties – of being strong contributors to good causes in Las Vegas. The Gaughans are not only good gamers; they are good citizens for Las Vegas.
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