Banking pioneer, casino developer reflect on their relationship in “Quiet Kingmaker” by Jack Sheehan

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the second of two excerpts from Jack Sheehan's "Quiet Kingmaker of Las Vegas" about E. Parry Thomas. Sheehan interviewed Thomas as well as casino industry executives for this book about the life of a Las Vegas pioneer.

PARRY THOMAS

Although there's always been this stereotype that you can't make a lot of money in downtown Las Vegas, I disagree with that. In my judgment downtown had its place and the Strip had its place. If they were properly managed, casinos would do well in either location.

Benny Binion did help change a lot downtown, no question about that. And when we loaned the Del Webb Co. the money to build the Mint, that helped a lot to add all those rooms downtown. Rooms mean people and people mean good gambling. Rooms are the key to gaming in Las Vegas.

That's why you always see the ads that say, "More rooms, bigger rooms, better rooms."

The hidden interest in gaming is all those rooms, because in Las Vegas it's a three-shift business. In the day shift you have people wandering around, visitors coming in and out. On the swing shift you have entertainment bringing in crowds for the night life and gaming, and then graveyard complements the other two shifts. ...

In those years in the late '60s and all through the '70s, I was trying to help Steve Wynn in every way I could. We had a very close relationship both in business and personally. He has such a wonderful family. I enjoyed watching his daughters Gillian and Kevyn come along, and Gillian loved Sun Valley and training with our horses when she was younger. To this day his daughters still call me Uncle Parry. It's just a wonderful family relationship. I'm just kind of a senior member now.

STEVE WYNN

There's a story involving Parry and he probably knows just parts of this story. It's rather long-winded, but it tells of the one time in my career where I made the mistake of questioning him, if only for a brief moment. The point of it all is that Parry never, ever had a sense of his own power. Never did anyone ever see him wearing the power that he wielded. He was always the most humble man, and he never ever told anybody what to do.

Every June back in the 1970s I would go up to the Binion family ranch in Montana and help Benny gather cattle. I liked to ride, and it was such a peaceful time, separating the calves and the moms from the steers and the bulls. The mothers can nurse their calves and the bulls go separately. It's not mating season. It's a lot of hours in the saddle, but it's quiet work. The TJ Ranch, named after Benny's wife, Teddy Jane, had 250,000 acres and it's magnificent country up there.

So one day I get a phone call and my secretary says that Shannon Bybee is trying to get a hold of me. He was head of the Gaming Control Board, and he was Mr. Mormon, the straightest arrow you could find. I call him back, and he says, "Are you running a training school for the Mafia at the Golden Nugget?"

"What do you mean by that?" I responded. Of course I was offended by the remark. I was sitting in the living room of Benny's little house up there, and Benny was on a Barcalounger with his feet up, listening to the conversation.

Shannon says, "Do you know who worked at our place yesterday?" I told him no, that I'd been at the Binion ranch for the last nine days. "Well, we got copies of all the work permits," he says, "and two nights ago John Spilotro started working for you. He's the brother of Tony Spilotro. John Spilotro is a break-in baccarat dealer at the Nugget."

"Who's John Spilotro? Who's Tony Spilotro?" I say. I had never heard of either of them.

"Tony Spilotro is one of the worst primitive gangsters that's ever been around here," Bybee says. "We almost took away Circus Circus's license because he had a gift shop there. He's a murderous, subnormal, primitive guy from Chicago who has found his way to Las Vegas and set up shop. And he's twisted up with some people in town at the Stardust. And we are highly embarrassed by his presence here. The Feds are on this guy, Steve. Everybody is on this guy."

"So who's John Spilotro?" I say.

"He's Tony's younger brother. He just turned twenty-one."

"Is he a gangster, too?" I say.

"No," Bybee says, "he's just the younger brother of Tony. I don't think he's ever been arrested or accused of any crime. But Steve, do you have any idea what it would look like with the Golden Nugget being a public company and you have the younger brother of this notorious guy working at one of your casinos? You would be tainted. It would look terrible if this were written up in the Wall Street Journal. You just got licensed and the Nugget's always had a reputation of being clean. Understand, I cannot tell you not to have this guy working at your place, and the Nevada Gaming Control Board has no authority to tell you to terminate this kid, but I think you can see this could be a big problem."

"You're absolutely right," I say. "He's not going to work a second shift." The way Spilotro got hired is that Ed and Fred Doumani were two of my shareholders, and they loved Joey Cusamano. Joey was a blackjack foreman for me, and Joey is a charming guy and he wanted to be a wiseguy in the worst way. And he charmed Freddy Doumani, and Freddy recommended him to me and we hired him and he worked his way up to a blackjack foreman. A sixty-dollar-a-day job.

When we put in a single baccarat table, Joey went to school for baccarat and we made him the baccarat floor man. We operated only one shift of baccarat at night, and it was a low-limit game.

Anyway, I found out from my casino manager, Murray Ehrenberg, that Joey Cusamano had hired John Spilotro, so I had an animated conversation with Murray and told him to fire both Spilotro and Cusamano. He said he didn't think that was fair, that John Spilotro hadn't done anything wrong. I explained in volatile language that he had put me in an awkward situation with this hire without running it by me first. I further told Murray that if something like this ever happened again, I was going to lose confidence in him.

Benny was sitting there quietly listening in on this. Now Benny was one of those guys you didn't try and make conversation with. He didn't like that. To him that was a sign of weakness.

After I got off the phone Benny looked over at me and said, "You fired him?"

"Sure did," I said. "Cusamano, too."

"Why?"

"John Spilotro's brother is a bad buy. That's what Bybee said."

"What Bybee told you is true," Benny said. "Not only a bad guy, but he likes being a bad guy."

Benny then kind of cocked his head and gave a little laugh. I didn't know quite what to take from that.

Jack Binion told me years later that shortly after that incident Tony Spilotro was in the Horseshoe and he started saying in a loud voice, "(Expletive) Steve Wynn! Who the hell does he think he is? I'm gonna kick his ass!"

And Benny came over and pointed his finger at Spilotro and said, "Don't say that. Hear? You understand?"

And Spilotro backed off and said, "Oh, I didn't mean it."

Benny jumped right on him in my defense.

This little vignette continued to play out over the next weeks. I got a call from (long-time gaming executive) Yale Cohen, whose son Gil is still a dear friend of mine. And Yale questioned my firing of John Spilotro, and said he didn't think it was fair because John Spilotro had never done anything wrong.

Next I heard from Davey Goldstein at the Dunes who says the rumor he heard was that the Gaming Control Board was going to close down the Golden Nugget unless I fired Spilotro. So I had to explain to him that that wasn't true and the reason for the firing was the negative publicity that would come down if the news were leaked to a newspaper about having a Spilotro on the payroll.

After a long conversation Davey realized he was out of line and he started to apologize, and I told him if he was so upset about it, he could hire John Spilotro at the Dunes.

Again he apologized and I told him he was the second person to call me about this situation.

"Well, everyone's been talking about it at the Las Vegas Country Club," Davey says.

Now I get a third call, about a week later from Parry Thomas, and Parry says, "Steve, what do you know about some kid named Spalatrone?"

Parry wasn't even sure of the name. Now this isn't Yale Cohen or Davey Goldstein on the phone. This is The Man himself.

"His name's Spilotro," I said. "John Spilotro."

"Yeah, that's it," Parry says.

"He's the brother of Tony Spilotro, who's a real hot potato," I say.

I explained the phone call from Shannon Bybee and the whole background of it, and how the hiring of John Spilotro could bring horrible publicity down on the Golden Nugget and that I wasn't going to subject our company to that.

And then I said to Parry, with an edge in my voice, because this was the third call I'd received on this matter, "Why are you asking me?"

"I got a call from Alan Dorfman," Parry says. "Alan called up and said the state of Nevada was acting like the Gestapo, citing guilt by association, hanging the guy without a trial, the sins of the brother being visited on the innocent, and that this kid went to work for Steve Wynn downtown and the state of Nevada had thrown him out of the casino without hello, goodbye, or kiss my ass."

"Dorfman said, 'Parry, it's terrible! Do you know Steve Wynn? The word is that you are his banker.' "

"I told him, 'Yes, I know him,' Parry said. 'He's like a son to me.' "

"Well, can you say something to him, Parry?" Dorfman said. "This seems so goddamn unfair."

I interrupted at that point and said, "What did you say to Alan Dorfman, Parry?"

I had a tone in my voice because I was a little fed up with these phone calls. I wasn't totally out of line, but I had uncertainty in my voice. That was a big mistake on my part.

Parry said, "What did you think I would say to him?"

Then there was a long pause, because Parry's got the longest fuse in the world. He's so comfortable in his own skin that you can't get him angry.

Finally, after a long time, Parry said, "I told him that under no circumstances, Alan, would I ever call a customer and give him any advice on the operation of his business. It is strictly a policy of the bank not to do that. And Steve Wynn is no different. And more so because of my personal relationship with him. If he made a decision, and I'm sure he had a good reason for doing so, under no circumstances should you think that I would make that phone call to him."

Parry then said to me, "And now that you've told me the facts, you did exactly the right thing. And that's why I called you. I was curious about the other side of the story."

The essence of the story was that I had for a brief moment questioned Parry Thomas, and that triggered a gentle but very distinct reprimand. It's the only time I believe I ever came close to hurting his feelings.

"Quiet Kingmaker" is published by Stephens Press, a division of Stephens Media Group, which owns the Las Vegas Review-Journal. To purchase the book or for more information go to stephenspress.com or call 383-0496.