Viva Las Vegas!

21. Harrah's Las Vegas

Las Vegas, NV

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William Fisk Harrah was born in Pasadena, California in 1911, the son of a lawyer and politician who neither smoked nor drank and found gambling monotonous. Bill Harrah began studying mechanical engineering at UCLA but was driven from school by the Great Depression. He went to work in various family businesses manning a hot dog stand and a pool hall and also running a game of chance called the Circle Game where a ball rolled down a board clicking off card suits and numbers. Weary of harassment by local officials over the legality of the game, Harrah left for Reno in 1937 and opened a bingo parlor. Scarcely two weeks later he turned the key for the last time of the failed operation, little realizing that his kaput bingo game would be the foundation for the world's largest gaming empire. Harrah's Plaza Tango started up again in July of 1938 and two months later he was running games on Virginia Stree. In June 1946 Harrah launched his first full-service casino on the ruins of the old Mint Club, trumpeting his operation as "Nevada's most beautiful casino." Nine years later Harrah's was in operation on the South Shore of Lake Tahoe. Bill Harrah died in 1978, five years after the company stock became the first gaming business to appear on the New York Stock Exchange. He never saw his name on a Las Vegas hotel. The first casino property at this location was a mom-and-pop operation called the Silver Slipper in 1973. Holiday Inn, Harrah's parent company. acquired the property in the 1980s and affixed the Harrah's nameplate to the casino in 1992. A subsequent renovation scuttled the original riverboat theme and replaced it with a Mardi Gras celebration motif. Today the multi-tower resort boasts 2,677 rooms.