
	"Guide to Casino Gambling" \| Press \| Book \| Credit Application

Steve Cyr's Press

Steve Cyr Press

"Firing it up with the Whale Hunter.
It's Steve Cyr's world, baby. You're just playing in it."

By Rob Wiser

The comped megasuites, limos, shows, booze and gourmet meals - it's all part of the elaborate courting ritual between Las Vegas casinos and high rollers. And when a gambler ascends to the level of "whale," willing to wager millions in the course of a single visit, forget the red carpet; that player's feet need barely touch the ground. We're talking private G3 jets, super-stretch SUVs waiting at the airport, and humongous lines of credit simply awaiting a signature. Just show up and take a shot.

Casinos employ hosts to attend to the needs of their elite players, to ensure they want for nothing and can focus on the matter at hand: gambling. Burn through a bundle, and your host can soothe the sting with extravagant VIP treatment. Win a bundle and they really go into overdrive, doing whatever it takes to keep you from walking out the door and losing it somewhere else. (In a casino's eyes, no player ever wins money. He's merely borrowing it.)

Players are often more loyal to their hosts than to the casinos themselves. Even the biggest whales love the idea of free stuff - whether it's the biggest suite in the joint, front-row concert tickets, or a shopping spree for their wife (or mistress) - those perks alone won't get them to stick around and take a shot at the tables. True whales choose their casino with the same scrutiny they usse when weighing a business deal, which only makes sense since they're risking their millions against unfavorable odds. Because the casinos crave their astronomical action, whales can negotiate the terms of their play prior to their arrival. Sometimes this means handing them back a percentage of their losses; it's not unheard of for a casino to refund 20 percent.

Steve Cyr is the most successful whale hunter in the business, a relentless deal-closer whose job is to seek out the biggest players and lure them in to the casinos he represents. If a whale is comfortably ensconced at a rival casino, Cyr will do whatever it takes to convince him to consider a change. He is remarkably effective because he speaks their language: money. Come with Cyr and you'll get a better deal, a better shot at winning, and receive unparalleled perks from his vast network of connections. "You can call me on Super Bowl Sunday and sit on the 50-yard line," he smiles.

"I'm kind of like Jerry Maguire," he explains. "I negotiate with the casino head: We can get that [player], but we have to do this. Then I negotiate for the player. I say, "Listen, you wouldn't go into a court of law without an attorney. You're a whale. You shouldn't go into a casino without a good independent host. I'm on your side."

After years of being employed exclusively by various casinos, where he earned a steady paycheck but chafed against their rules and cautious attitudes, Cyr created H-Six, which he calls in "independent consulting company" that provides him and his players with greater flexibility. (The Company's name refers to his host number back when he was with the Hilton.) His partner in H-Six is his wife, Tanya; they met when he was an independent host witht the Hard Rock and she was a bartender at the property's Pink Taco restaurant. Cyr knew that big-shot players from other casinos liked to visit the Hard Rock to party and flirt with the young women; Tanya used to tell him about the $100 tips they'd throw around the restaurant.

"Forget about the tips," Cyr told her. "I started to educate her to listen for buzz words: 'I'm in the Mansions,' 'Igot fight tickets,' 'I'm in the Palazzo suites' [at the Rio]. 'I came in on the MGM private plane.' 'I've got a $100,000 credit line.' Those are the guys I wanted to know. [I said] turn 'em on to me, and I'll split my commissions with you." This arrangement netted them $15,000 in the first month. Tanya quit her bartender gig and started working with Cyr full-time, and their partnership blossomed into marriage.

Unique amont casino reps, the Cyrs have deals in place with a number of properites and offer their players unrivaled VIP service at all of them. Their major clients include the Atlantis ("as beautiful as Bellagio, in the Bahamas"); Barona in San Diego ("extremely high limits, they let my guys bet up to $100,000 a hand"); Norwegian Cruise Lines; Mohegan Sun ("6,000 slot machines, it's unbelievable"); and the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas.

"It's a one-stop shopping for high rollers," Cyr proclaims. "Wanna go on a cruise? Call me. Vegas is too hot? How about San Diegeo? It's cold in New York, but you don't want to come all the way west? Okay, come down to Atlantis."

Vegas is where Cyr lives and made his name, and the Nugget is his kind of casino: beneath the glitzy veneer it's a gambling joint, pure and simple, with the biggest table limits in town, player-friendly rules and exceptional odds. Just as important for Cyr, the owners - Tim Poster and tom Breitling, two dot-com multimillionaires in their 30s - are a refreshing change from the bureaucracies he battled while hosting for larger corporate-owned casinos. The Nugget gives Cyr the latitude he needs to "harpoon" whales with incentives they won't get anywhere else. "I've had Larry Flynt down three or four times in the last few months, because they let him bet 50 [thousand] a hand," he says.

That's the advantage I have over the other 500 hosts in this town," he says of the properties he represents. "If you're a host at the Mirage, you've got to pump up the Mirage. If you hear about a big player at Venetian, you're stuck. I get in my car, go over to the Venetian and have dinner with him - 'I'm Steve Cyr, independent host' - and I try to get him. Maybe he doesn't need me and the Nugget for that trip, but the next trip he [might] want to go to Barona or Atlantis. Now I've got him. And [I say,] 'next time you're in town, you owe me a trip to the Nugget.' I can do more for him than just one property."

One of Cyr's most coveted whale is media mogul Larry Flynt, who used to take his blackjack action to Caesars while Cyr was at the Hilton. Every Monday for six months, Cyr had a $125 gift basket of fruits and chocolates delivered to Flynt's Los Angeles office. On two occasions, Cyr showeed up at his office unannounced to make his pitch; the second time, Flynt granted him an audience and Cyr promptly offered him a hundred grand just to play at the Hilton. Flynt flew in, with a camera crew from "48 Hours" in town, and won a million that first night. He evenetually had 17 winning trips in a row and beat the Hilton for $9 million. Whales like Flynt, who play purely to win, stick to basic stragegy and don't succumb to the distractions of Vegas, are dangerous to a casino's bottom line. "He's a very disciplined player," says Cyr. "If Larry wins a million on Friday, unlike most guys who will try to double it by Sunday, he goes home; he's got his own G3 [jet]."

When the mogul's luck turned bad, losting millions back to the casino, so did his relationship with Cyr. Then one day flynt needed a favor' he was getting married and wanted to throw his bachelor party at the Beverly Hills Hilton, but they turned down the request. Cyr went to one of his whale buddies in Beverly Hills, who agreed to let him take all the furniture out of his 12,000-square foot mansion and bring in a small army of caterers and security staff. Cyr hosted a mammoth bash that reestablished Flynt as his friend - and player.

"A third of my customers are like Larry [Flynt]; they've got so much money it's not really going to make a difference to them," he explains. "Another third are young and trying it out, they're fun. The other third should not be here, and unfortunately, they're the most fun. I have a guy right now that's a $5,000 player. A decade ago he was a $100,000 player. We used to pick him up in a private plane; now he comes on Southwest. But he's still hanging in there. A lot of my guys are going to be very wealthy, and very broke, a few times in their lifetime. They know how to make money, so they come back. They love the ride. I call it 'the fever.'"

In the long run, it's wiser to limit a high roller's credit - and keep him as a regular customer - than to allow him to go wild and bust himself out. Still, Cyr openly acknowledges that he's seen a number of players go broke. "If it's cash, he's going to lost it someplace, so it might as well be at one of Steve Cyr's casinos," he states matter-of-factly. "No one's putting a gun to his head. Now if the guy's completely tanked up, drunk, no - we're a lot better than people think about saying 'hey, you're done here today.' Or, if he's being abusive to the dealer."

This dizzying world must seem a million light years from small-town Kansas, where Cyr was raised. His father operated a local Howard Johnson hotel; Cyr originally came to Las Vegas in 1983 to attend UNLV's hotel college and learn the trade, so that he could return home to run the family business. But then he discovered th action inside the casinos, and he was immediately hooked. In his senior year he served an internship at the Barbary Coast casino on the Strip. Upon graduating he turned down a position in the Marriott Hotels training program to work in the Barbary Coasst sports book for $50 a shift.

In 1991, Cyr joined Park Place Entertainment as a slot host at Caesars Palace. Working and networking at a ferocious pace, he soon earned a hostposition at the Hilton. His brash attitude and big ideas - aggressively track down players and offer them the moon, as long as it gets them into the casino - clashed with the more conservative ways of his old-school fellow hosts. Cyr scouted new prospects all over town, and at one point badgered his bosses to give him a list of players who hadn't visited the property in a year. Once he got his hands on the list, Cyr started working the phones, casting out hooks, pumping fresh blood into the casino and millions into his coffers. In his nine year withth Park Place entertainment, Cyr says he was the company's top-producing host - every single month. In his last two years with PPE he won the company $32 million, a record he says "will never be broken."

In his early days, Cyr says he would "fish leads out of the garbage, literally." Antoher simple but effective technique was to hang around the airport, checking the signed that the casinos' limo drivers were holding up and writing down the names. Afterward, the would call the casino and ask for that person's room. Once he had them on the phone, he'd launch into his rap ("Hey Mr. D, it's Steve Cyr from the Las Vegas Hilton. I heard you're in town..."), explain the myriad reasons why they should be playig at his casino instead, and invite them to dinner. Usually, it was the offer of free money that closed the deal - whatever Cyr can promist them just for giving his table s a shot. It's the same ideas as the bounce-back cash coupons that casinos mail their small-time players: $2, $5, $10 in free play the next time they visit. It's a surefire way to tet them back to the casino, and in Cyr's world, it's just a matter of there being more zeroes in the number.

Ask Cyr's rivals about his unorthodox sales techniques, and their replies would probably be unprintable. He's got moles all over town feeding him information, from hotel clerks to bartenders to strippers, and once he's got a lead he won't hesittate to hunt down high rollers at other properties and try to steal them out from under their current host. "Say you're a million-dollar player, and I find out you're going to Bellagio tomorrow. If I call [the hotel] early enough in the morning and get a clerk who doesn't know what she's doing, I'll pretend to be that player: 'Hey, honey, this is John Smith, account number 12345. My wife is sick, so I can't make it. Could you cancel my room and my limo:' Now the guy comes into town, the limo isn't there, he's pissed off, and I show up. Works pretty well. That's dirty, but if I've got to get a guy, I've go to get a guy."

Cyr recalls the following trick from his days at the Hilton: Some players at the Mirage want to visit the Hilton to see one of its shows. The Mirage calls the Hilton and says, "We're sending a party of four over. Comp these guys tickets, a bottle of champagne, whatever they want. We'll reimburse you for it." Cyr dinds out about it. He goes to the VIP Services desk and picks up the tickets. When the Mirage high rollers show up, their tickets aren't there - at which point Cyr swoops in, listens to their plight, and graciously offeres to comp them everything personally. In the end, the Mirage stills picks up the tab, but it's Cyr who looks like the hero - and in the process, he gains the gratitude of four new players.

When dealing with a fresh prospect, Cyr does the following: "I get the lead, I call the guy, I find out when he's in town. I run a Central Credit [search] on him, I do my research on his financials. I can tell where he plays, how much, how he pays. I mgiht be able to get more information from another rep: what game he plays, what kind of strategy he uses. All of that factors in. Now I know what I'm going to offer him. Most hosts will call [a potential new player] and say, 'Hey, next time yo're in town I'll buy you dinner, or you play, I can comp you.' When I call, because I've done my research, I'll say 'I'm sending a private plane to you. I'm going to pick you up in a G3 tomorrow, and I'm going to give you $5,000 when you walk in the door.'"

Once Cyr has locked up a player, he'll arrange for their travel to the casino, set up their credit line, take them to dinner - do whatever he can make them feel comfortable and get ready to "fire it up," his parlance for serious gambling. Ultimately, the goal is to deliver them tot he gaming tables, at which point the casino's operational side takes over.

When their gambling concludes, Cyr often has to complete what he calls "Part Two" of his task - making sure they settle up with the casino, because if it doesn't get paid, neither does he. "Most hosts will worry about the play. I worry about the pay," he says. "My first whale stiffed me for 300 grand. You've got to get screwed a few times to learn."

Despite the huge profits he earned for the Hilton, his no-holds-barred style didn't sit well with management. After working for them for nearly a decade, he was loose. But casinos part ways with a host like Cyr at their own risk. When he walks out the door, millions of dollars worth of action can leave with him.

His financial arrangements with casinos depend on the jurisdiction. In California, the laws permit him to get a percentage of his players' losses. In Nevada, only casino owners are entitled to these losses, so Cyr is paid instead in theoretical losses - based on a mathematical formula that predicts how much a player will lose over a given period of time. Either way his methods are cost-effective for casinos because "I only get paid on what I produce." He doesn't requrie standard employee benefits or an offic eon the premises, though when he's schmoozing with high rollers, the casino will often pick up the tab; a couple of years ago, this meant hanging with some top players in a $100,000 skybox at the Super Bowl.

The term whale conjures up images of stoic Asian billionaires playing baccarat. In reality this segment of the market is much thinner that it once was, due to troubled foreighn economies - and options closer to home, now that Vegas operators such as Steve Wynn have opened new casinos in Macau, China. But Cyr still maintains a healthy stable of international whales; he recently hosted a pair from Italy at the Golden Nugget (which required the services of an interpreter), and his biggest players, in the $5 million range, hail from Thailand. His bread and butter, however, remains the gambleers who fly in regularly to fire it up and blow it out. "Most of my boys are U.S.A., baby," he says. "California, New York, Florida."

And Cyr's "boys" don't come from the usual professions one associates with big bucks; you won't find doctors and lawyers firing it up at the Nugget. "they're stiffs," he says dismissively. "They go to college forever, then they pay back their loans forever. [Being cautious] is their mentality. My guys are risk-takers. They own bars, restaurants, dry cleaners, car washes. They're day traders, dot-commers. They're entrepreneurs. I've got more big players under the age of 50 than over."

In the end, homegrown players are far more valuabe then hit-and-run whales from the other side of the globe. "A high roller, to me, is a guy that will risk $50,000 to $250,000," he says. "A whale is $250,000 and more. Maybe a guy only has $100,000 [credit] line, but he lives in California and I see him once a month. To me, that's better than a million-dollar guuy from Asia who maybe comes once, twice a year, and you're going to be competing with Bellagio and the other places. [If] he wins, you don't see him for six months to a year."

"I'm losing 10-15 percent of them a year because they're sick of gambling, they're out of money, or they're sick of Steve Cyr. The third thing doesn't happen too often, but it happens."

OTHER ARTICLES

Cigar Aficionado 2002 | Cigar Aficionado 2003 | Dirty Dozen | Las Vegas Life 2002 | Las Vegas Life 2004