Jay Sarno
Encyclopedia
Jay Sarno was a Las Vegas
business entrepreneur who owned several high-profile hotel
s. He was the creator of both the Caesars Palace
hotel and Circus Circus
, and many credit him with being the father of today's more family-oriented Las Vegas. Ironically, although Sarno seemed to believe that Las Vegas could survive with fewer gamblers
and more families visiting, he was himself a gambler. His former wife, Joyce Sarno Keys, once declared that, during one day of gambling, Sarno won 100,000 dollars, only to leave the same night with a debt of exactly that same amount.
. He came of age during the era of the Great Depression
. His father was a cabinet
maker, his mother a homemaker
. The Sarnos were a very poor family, and young Jay wanted a better way of living in the future. Because of his oldest Brother, Herman Sarno (also a Hotelier), he and his six siblings were able to attend college
; Jay graduated from the University of Missouri
, with a degree in business.
It was at the University of Missouri that he met Stanley Mallin, who would become his life long friend and business partner. He and Mallin went to World War II
and fought at the South Pacific
theater. Sarno and Mallin settled in Miami, Florida
, after returning to the United States
; there, they became tile
contractors. After that initial business venture failed, they moved north, to Atlanta, Georgia
, where they became house builders. But Sarno and Mallin's lack of a truck
haunted the pair during their second business venture together, and, eventually, they gave up on building houses.
Sarno and Mallin later on would meet Jimmy Hoffa
. The union leader liked Sarno and Mallin's willingness to become successful businessmen, and he introduced Sarno and Mallin to Allen D Dorfman, who loan
ed Sarno and his friend some money
, allowing them to open the Atlanta Cabana Motel in 1958.
After Sarno hired interior designer Jo Harris, the Cabana motel became a successful business, and soon, other motel locations were opened, in Palo Alto, California
, and Dallas, Texas
.
The closeness of those two cities to the gambling capital of the time, Las Vegas, brought a temptation that Sarno was unable to resist. So he took a short trip to Las Vegas, and found what he thought was a plain city, with small hotel chains and not enough casinos for gamblers to play in. The way he saw it, he could make a hotel there that would appeal to gamblers and make much more money than the Hilton Hotel located there, which did not have a casino then.
an, yet at the same time appeal to Americans, and, in 1964, he, alongside Mallin and Harris, began to build the Caesars Palace
Hotel. The idea was at first met with skepticism, because many considered a European style hotel in the middle of an American desert to be a business failure in the making.
Harris, however, designed the hotel in a way that each of its amenities had to be approached by passing the hotel's casino first; this, in turn, would lead to people being tempted to try their luck in the casino area, which made the hotel a profitable business venture. The Caesars Palace hotel was inaugurated in 1966; by 1969, Sarno and his business partners were able to sell the property for the amount of 60 million dollars.
Sarno and Mallin then opened what was one of Las Vegas' first family oriented venues, the Circus Circus
. The attraction featured a circus
tent with daily acts, and Sarno would dress up as a ringmaster and attend to families and children personally.
The Circus Circus was not a hotel when Sarno and Mallin opened it: instead, it was a casino with, as its name implies, a circus. Sarno's idea was that, while children could go and use their money having fun at the circus' their parents, likewise, would use the money at the casino. But soon, a Gas
crisis began in the United States, affecting tourism
to Las Vegas, and the casino did not do well under Sarno and Mallin's leadership, so Bill Pennington
and Bill Bennett
, a Del Webb
executive, leased the Circus Circus.
After retiring from the Circus Circus, Sarno spent the rest of his time teaching
would-be hotel owners about how to manage that type of business, and dreaming about a new hotel venture, which would have been called the "Grandissimo". One of his students was Steve Wynn
, who would later on become the owner of the Golden Nugget and the creator/owner of The Mirage
Hotel, Treasure island, and Wynn Las Vegas. Sarno could not complete his dream of opening the "Grandissimo"; death
surprised him during the planning stages of what would have been his third business venture in Las Vegas.
Jay Sarno had four children: Jay Sarno Jr, an engineering company owner, September, a former Miss Nevada
contestant who is now a stockbroker, Heidi Sarno Strauss, a flower store owner, and Freddie Sarno, also a stockbroker.
Jay Sarno knew how much his son Jay Jr. loved the NASA
Space program as a young boy; he once took Jay Jr. to a NASA collectibles show and bid
ten thousand dollars on a patch used by Jack Swigert
, of the famed Apollo 13
mission. Asked by his son why he would bid such a relatively large amount of money on an item like that, Sarno showed some affection, answering that he just wanted Jay Jr. to have it.
Jay Sarno later on grew frustrated because his dream of building the "Grandissimo" seemed impossible, and he was never able to overcome his gambling addiction
. He died of a heart attack
at Caesars Palace, a hotel he formerly owned, while on a gambling stay at the hotel.
Sarno was elected to the Gaming Hall of Fame
in 1989.
Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...
business entrepreneur who owned several high-profile hotel
Hotel
A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. The provision of basic accommodation, in times past, consisting only of a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand has largely been replaced by rooms with modern facilities, including en-suite bathrooms...
s. He was the creator of both the Caesars Palace
Caesars Palace
Caesars Palace is a luxury hotel and casino located on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada, an unincorporated township in Clark County, Nevada, United States in the Las Vegas metropolitan area. Caesars Palace is owned and operated by Caesars Entertainment Corp....
hotel and Circus Circus
Circus Circus Las Vegas
Circus Circus Las Vegas is a hotel and casino located on the Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is owned and operated by MGM Resorts International. Circus Circus features circus acts and carnival type games daily on the Midway...
, and many credit him with being the father of today's more family-oriented Las Vegas. Ironically, although Sarno seemed to believe that Las Vegas could survive with fewer gamblers
Gambling
Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods...
and more families visiting, he was himself a gambler. His former wife, Joyce Sarno Keys, once declared that, during one day of gambling, Sarno won 100,000 dollars, only to leave the same night with a debt of exactly that same amount.
Brief Biography
Jay Sarno was born in Saint Joseph, MissouriSaint Joseph, Missouri
Saint Joseph is the second largest city in northwest Missouri, only second to Kansas City in size, serving as the county seat for Buchanan County. As of the 2010 census, Saint Joseph had a total population of 76,780, making it the eighth largest city in the state. The St...
. He came of age during the era of the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
. His father was a cabinet
Cabinet (furniture)
A cabinet is usually a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors or drawers for storing miscellaneous items. Some cabinets stand alone while others are built into a wall or are attached to it like a medicine cabinet. Cabinets are typically made of wood or, now increasingly, of synthetic...
maker, his mother a homemaker
Homemaker
Homemaking is a mainly American term for the management of a home, otherwise known as housework, housekeeping or household management...
. The Sarnos were a very poor family, and young Jay wanted a better way of living in the future. Because of his oldest Brother, Herman Sarno (also a Hotelier), he and his six siblings were able to attend college
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
; Jay graduated from the University of Missouri
University of Missouri
The University of Missouri System is a state university system providing centralized administration for four universities, a health care system, an extension program, five research and technology parks, and a publishing press. More than 64,000 students are currently enrolled at its four campuses...
, with a degree in business.
It was at the University of Missouri that he met Stanley Mallin, who would become his life long friend and business partner. He and Mallin went to World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and fought at the South Pacific
South Pacific Area
The South Pacific Area was a multinational U.S.-led military command active during World War II. It was a part of the U.S. Pacific Ocean Areas under Admiral Chester Nimitz.Instructions to the senior U.S...
theater. Sarno and Mallin settled in Miami, Florida
Miami, Florida
Miami is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States with a population of 2,500,625...
, after returning to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
; there, they became tile
Tile
A tile is a manufactured piece of hard-wearing material such as ceramic, stone, metal, or even glass. Tiles are generally used for covering roofs, floors, walls, showers, or other objects such as tabletops...
contractors. After that initial business venture failed, they moved north, to Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...
, where they became house builders. But Sarno and Mallin's lack of a truck
Truck
A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport cargo. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, with the smallest being mechanically similar to an automobile...
haunted the pair during their second business venture together, and, eventually, they gave up on building houses.
Sarno and Mallin later on would meet Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
James Riddle "Jimmy" Hoffa was an American labor union leader....
. The union leader liked Sarno and Mallin's willingness to become successful businessmen, and he introduced Sarno and Mallin to Allen D Dorfman, who loan
Loan
A loan is a type of debt. Like all debt instruments, a loan entails the redistribution of financial assets over time, between the lender and the borrower....
ed Sarno and his friend some money
Money
Money is any object or record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in a given country or socio-economic context. The main functions of money are distinguished as: a medium of exchange; a unit of account; a store of value; and, occasionally in the past,...
, allowing them to open the Atlanta Cabana Motel in 1958.
After Sarno hired interior designer Jo Harris, the Cabana motel became a successful business, and soon, other motel locations were opened, in Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto is a California charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. The city shares its borders with East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, Portola Valley, and Menlo Park. It is...
, and Dallas, Texas
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
.
The closeness of those two cities to the gambling capital of the time, Las Vegas, brought a temptation that Sarno was unable to resist. So he took a short trip to Las Vegas, and found what he thought was a plain city, with small hotel chains and not enough casinos for gamblers to play in. The way he saw it, he could make a hotel there that would appeal to gamblers and make much more money than the Hilton Hotel located there, which did not have a casino then.
The Caesars Palace era
Sarno wanted a hotel whose name would sound EuropeEurope
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an, yet at the same time appeal to Americans, and, in 1964, he, alongside Mallin and Harris, began to build the Caesars Palace
Caesars Palace
Caesars Palace is a luxury hotel and casino located on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada, an unincorporated township in Clark County, Nevada, United States in the Las Vegas metropolitan area. Caesars Palace is owned and operated by Caesars Entertainment Corp....
Hotel. The idea was at first met with skepticism, because many considered a European style hotel in the middle of an American desert to be a business failure in the making.
Harris, however, designed the hotel in a way that each of its amenities had to be approached by passing the hotel's casino first; this, in turn, would lead to people being tempted to try their luck in the casino area, which made the hotel a profitable business venture. The Caesars Palace hotel was inaugurated in 1966; by 1969, Sarno and his business partners were able to sell the property for the amount of 60 million dollars.
Sarno and Mallin then opened what was one of Las Vegas' first family oriented venues, the Circus Circus
Circus Circus Las Vegas
Circus Circus Las Vegas is a hotel and casino located on the Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is owned and operated by MGM Resorts International. Circus Circus features circus acts and carnival type games daily on the Midway...
. The attraction featured a circus
Circus
A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...
tent with daily acts, and Sarno would dress up as a ringmaster and attend to families and children personally.
The Circus Circus was not a hotel when Sarno and Mallin opened it: instead, it was a casino with, as its name implies, a circus. Sarno's idea was that, while children could go and use their money having fun at the circus' their parents, likewise, would use the money at the casino. But soon, a Gas
Gasoline
Gasoline , or petrol , is a toxic, translucent, petroleum-derived liquid that is primarily used as a fuel in internal combustion engines. It consists mostly of organic compounds obtained by the fractional distillation of petroleum, enhanced with a variety of additives. Some gasolines also contain...
crisis began in the United States, affecting tourism
Tourism
Tourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".Tourism has become a...
to Las Vegas, and the casino did not do well under Sarno and Mallin's leadership, so Bill Pennington
Bill Pennington
William Mark Pennington , best known as Bill Pennington, is an American journalist, sportswriter and author. A reporter for The New York Times since 1997, Pennington has become best known for his sports journalism on golf, skiing and other sports. In 2008, Pennington began starring in golf videos...
and Bill Bennett
Bill Bennett
William Richards Bennett, PC, OBC , commonly known as Bill Bennett, was the 27th Premier of the Canadian province of British Columbia 1975–1986. He is a son of the former Premier, W. A. C. Bennett. He was a 3rd cousin, twice removed, of R.B...
, a Del Webb
Del Webb
Delbert Eugene Webb was an American construction magnate, real estate developer and sports-team owner, who is most significant for founding and developing the retirement community of Sun City, Arizona.-Early life:...
executive, leased the Circus Circus.
After retiring from the Circus Circus, Sarno spent the rest of his time teaching
Teacher
A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...
would-be hotel owners about how to manage that type of business, and dreaming about a new hotel venture, which would have been called the "Grandissimo". One of his students was Steve Wynn
Steve Wynn (developer)
Stephen Alan "Steve" Wynn is an American business magnate who played a pivotal role in the 1990s resurgence and expansion of the Las Vegas Strip...
, who would later on become the owner of the Golden Nugget and the creator/owner of The Mirage
The Mirage
The Mirage is a 3,044 room hotel and casino resort located on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada, United States.The Mirage is connected by a free tram to Treasure Island. The marquee in front of the Mirage is the largest free standing marquee in the world.-History:The Mirage was built by...
Hotel, Treasure island, and Wynn Las Vegas. Sarno could not complete his dream of opening the "Grandissimo"; death
Death
Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....
surprised him during the planning stages of what would have been his third business venture in Las Vegas.
Family life
Sarno was married but in 1974, he and wife Joyce Sarno Keys divorced, but they remained on friendly terms, often reuniting for family events.Jay Sarno had four children: Jay Sarno Jr, an engineering company owner, September, a former Miss Nevada
Miss Nevada
The Miss Nevada competition is the pageant that selects the representative for the state of Nevada in the Miss America pageant.- Winners :- External links :*...
contestant who is now a stockbroker, Heidi Sarno Strauss, a flower store owner, and Freddie Sarno, also a stockbroker.
Jay Sarno knew how much his son Jay Jr. loved the NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
Space program as a young boy; he once took Jay Jr. to a NASA collectibles show and bid
BID
Bid may refer to:*Bidding, making a price offer in an auction, stock exchange, or card games*Bid , a British home shopping channel...
ten thousand dollars on a patch used by Jack Swigert
Jack Swigert
He later became staff director of the Committee on Science and Technology of the U.S. House of Representatives.Swigert was elected as a Republican to Colorado's newly created 6th congressional district in November 1982. He defeated Democrat Steve Hogan, 98,909 votes to 56,518...
, of the famed Apollo 13
Apollo 13
Apollo 13 was the seventh manned mission in the American Apollo space program and the third intended to land on the Moon. The craft was launched on April 11, 1970, at 13:13 CST. The landing was aborted after an oxygen tank exploded two days later, crippling the service module upon which the Command...
mission. Asked by his son why he would bid such a relatively large amount of money on an item like that, Sarno showed some affection, answering that he just wanted Jay Jr. to have it.
Jay Sarno later on grew frustrated because his dream of building the "Grandissimo" seemed impossible, and he was never able to overcome his gambling addiction
Substance dependence
The section about substance dependence in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders does not use the word addiction at all. It explains:...
. He died of a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
at Caesars Palace, a hotel he formerly owned, while on a gambling stay at the hotel.
Sarno was elected to the Gaming Hall of Fame
Gaming Hall of Fame
The Gaming Hall of Fame was established in 1989 to recognize individuals who have played a significant role in the gaming-entertainment industry....
in 1989.