Ruffin plans to die at his desk in Las Vegas. On a Wednesday in December, the 89-year-old casino billionaire is sitting right where he plans to cash in his chips – in his office at Treasure Island, the Strip casino-hotel he bought from MGM for $775 million in 2009 (or about $1.1 billion). of current dollars) – and discards the idea of retiring.
“What am I going to do, watch TV?” says Ruffin, wearing a smart white shirt under a blue blazer. “We lived a long time: my mother lived to be 103 years old, but I took her car away from her when she was 95.”
Most days, Ruffin is sitting at his desk, covered in papers, a huge calculator and a magnifying glass, at 5 in the morning, because he also owns the Miami Casino in Florida, three time zones away. “If there’s a problem, I can fix it,” he says.
Right now, however, he’s focused on his other Las Vegas property, the legendary Circus Circus, which sits on 102 acres at the north end of the Strip, near Sphere and the new Fountainbleau. Ruffin says he has been contacted by some buyers about selling Circus Circus.
“Let’s say there’s interest,” he says timidly. “It is worth $5 billion.”
Ruffin, whose fortune, according to Forbes, At around $4.7 billion (although he says it’s closer to $8 billion), he bought Circus Circus from MGM for $825 million in 2019 (about $1 billion today). Originally built in 1968 by Jay Sarno, a Las Vegas Hall of Famer who opened Caesars Palace two years earlier, the property featured live circus shows, trained elephants and monkeys in the arcade and was promoted as the Sin City’s first family casino. The property struggled until Bill Bennett and William Pennington took it over in the 1970s, establishing it as one of the city’s most iconic properties.
The monkeys and elephants are long gone, and the casino has seen better days. “Have you been there? “It’s awful,” says an executive at a luxury casino further down the Strip. “The North Strip is a dangerous neighborhood.” (An example: In 2018, a man broke into a room at Circus Circus and stabbed and killed two people.) But its budget hotel reputation, indoor theme park, live circus performers and cheap room rates still appeal to its core demographic: middle-class gamers with kids.
“We’re doing well,” Ruffin says. “We sell $2 beer, $2 hot dogs, $2 popcorn. People love it. “A man can eat and drink for six dollars.”
But Ruffin didn’t buy Circus Circus just to satisfy the needs of Las Vegas’ small-time gamblers. He bought it for its upside potential, he says, looking at his $100,000 Patek Philippe watch.
“Why do you think I bought Circus Circus? For the 102 hectares,” he says. “That is the question of the land. Remember what I did at Frontier, how the value of land skyrocketed; here it is going up even more.”
In 1998, Ruffin purchased the Frontier for $165 million (about $320 million today), which was plagued by a labor strike until Ruffin resolved it. Nine years later, he sold the Frontier for $1.2 billion, seven times what he paid for it. While Nevada as a whole is on a winning streak, breaking gaming revenue records in each of the last four years, businesses on the north end of the Strip are struggling.
The Sphere, sports mogul James Dolan’s new $2.3 billion venue near the north end of Las Vegas Boulevard, is drawing thousands of fans to sold-out shows but lost $480 million last year. Resorts World Las Vegas, which opened in 2021, recently reported its worst quarter in two years, with revenue falling 23%. Fountainbleau, partly owned by Koch Real Estate Investments, is reportedly struggling to find its financial footing. But there is positive news in Sin City: The Oakland Athletics are moving into a new stadium on the site of the recently demolished Tropicana casino. And Ruffin has some valuable land for sale.
“It’s the best land on the West Coast,” he boasts. “It’s got the freeway, it’s got the Sahara, it’s 2,000 feet above the Strip and it’s the last property on the Strip. And 102 acres is a huge amount of land; “You can almost build a city on it.”
Although Ruffin tends to exaggerate, he has a proven track record and is well respected in Las Vegas. Soo Kim, chairman of Bally’s Corporation and managing partner of hedge fund Standard General, considers Ruffin a legendary businessman.
“He’s a smart guy and his purchase of Treasure Island was great,” says Kim, who is in the process of taking Bally’s private in a $4.6 billion deal. “It’s part of the social fabric of gambling in Las Vegas.”
Macquarie gaming analyst Chad Beynon says venues like the Las Vegas Convention Center and the Sphere and new properties like the Fountainbleau have become major attractions in Ruffin’s part of the city. “The overall center of gravity continues to shift toward the north end of the Strip,” Beynon says.
And Ruffin is not only one of the last independent casino magnates, he is also the best friend and business partner of incoming US president Donald Trump. The two co-own the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, a gleaming gold hotel where earlier this month a 37-year-old U.S. Army Green Beret committed suicide and blew up a rented Tesla Cybertruck, injuring seven people.
Trump and Ruffin have been friends for decades. Trump was the best man at Ruffin’s wedding and they have spent the last 12 New Year’s Eve together at Mar-a-Lago. This year, Ruffin said he sat at the same table as billionaire and major Republican Party donor Miriam Adelson, who co-founded the Las Vegas Sands casino empire with her husband, Sheldon, who died in 2021. Also present was the oldest man The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, who donated more than $200 million to Trump’s campaign and has become a key advisor to the president-elect.
“I told Musk that he is a credit to the United States,” says Ruffin. “The richest man in the world, for God’s sake. “That boy is very smart.”
Ruffin says he talks to Trump regularly and points to a framed photo of the two billionaires in the Oval Office. “I talk to him all the time,” says Ruffin, who will attend the inauguration. “I give him suggestions, but he doesn’t follow them.”
Ruffin’s last suggestion was to name Marco Rubio as Trump’s vice president, but Trump chose Ohio Sen. JD Vance (Trump nominated Rubio for secretary of state). Ruffin and Trump have also discussed tariffs, which Ruffin believes are necessary to protect American industry and jobs (Ruffin owns Harper Trucks, a small hand truck manufacturer in Kansas).
“I wouldn’t dare tell you what to do about the tariffs,” he says. “Tariffs are not new. It’s like buying shelf space in a big supermarket, and the United States is the big supermarket. “Tariffs would be appropriate in some ways, but that is something for Trump to decide.”
The two billionaires have also spoken about the Panama Canal, which President Trump says should be controlled by the United States. “We agreed that something has to be done with the Panama Canal,” he says. “I can’t imagine we’ll give that channel away for a dollar, like President Carter did. It is fundamental.” Ruffin also agrees with Trump’s tough stance on immigration: “He’s going to focus on criminals, and everyone is for that,” he says. As for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ruffin, whose wife is Ukrainian, says Trump will end that war. “If anyone can solve it, it’s Donald,” he says.
Politics aside, Ruffin is building a new casino in his hometown of Wichita, Kansas, on what was a greyhound racing track he owned. He is investing 200 million dollars in the place, building what will become The Golden Circle, which will feature pari-mutuel games similar to slot machines, a bar called Gilley’s Saloon and an outdoor concert venue. It is expected to open this fall.
When Ruffin sells Circus Circus, he plans to buy another property on the Strip with the proceeds. If you invest the money in another business, you can avoid paying capital gains. His preference is to buy something in Las Vegas, where Brendan Bussmann, a gaming analyst, says “everything is always on the table” at the right price. But if Las Vegas doesn’t work out for Ruffin’s next move, he’s willing to look for opportunities in other states. “I have my eyes on some properties,” Ruffin says, evasive. “It could be in another city, if it’s good enough.”
Ruffin is confident his next big bet will turn out well, but he has a good cushion to fall back on no matter what. “I have more money than I can handle,” he says. But that doesn’t mean the self-made billionaire forgets where he comes from: a state wrestling champion from working-class Wichita high school. “I started with zero, nothing “, says. “Once, I had 28 cents.”
This article was originally published on Forbes US.
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