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Steve Cyr's Press

Steve Cyr Press

Nevada Magazine / April 2005

"Whale Tale:

Super-high rollers and their casino hosts are special breeds, as described in this excerpt from Whale Hunt in the Desert: The Secret Las Vegas of Superhost Steve Cyr."

By Deke Castleman

Somewhere along the line, the term whale was inserted into the gambling lexicon to describe the biggest bettors in the casino universe. In the lingo, "whale" denotes the world's richest men and women (but mostly men) who play casino games at the highest allowable stakes.

No one knows for certain how many of these highest of high rollers there are. The largest table-game bet currently taken in Las Vegas is $250,000, but only seven or eight human blue whales can handle that kind of action. the second stratum tops out at $150,000 per hand, a level manageable by up to 50 players worldwide. A hundred more can "fade" $100,000 a hand.

Theirs is a firmament of 35-person entourages, flown in to Las Vegas on business jets, private airliners, or chartered jumbos. They're shuttled by fleets of stretch limousines -- stocked with Dom Perignon and Beluga caviar -- to places such as the Mansion at MGM Grand, among the world's most exclusive accommodations. there, concierges, VIP hostesses, casino hosts, casino executives, limo drivers, butlers, and personal chefs cater to their every whim.

Whales can receive as much as $250,000 in free play simply for walking through a casino's door, with the promise of up to a 20-percent discount on their gambling losses. If they don't feel like partaking in private dinner parties prepared in person in their 15,000-square-fot penthouse villas by flambe, salad, and pastry chefs, they can strut their stuff into five-star restaurants and scribble their names on $20,000 dinner and drink tabs.

The casino employee who hunts, harpoons, and harvests the whales is the casino marketing executive, also known as the player development representative and host. UPwards of 500 hosts ply their trade in Las Vegas. And of them all, the host among hosts, the manipulator among manipulators, the champion harpooner in the modern day whale hunt in the desert is a character named Steve Cyr.

Steve Cyr (pronounced seer) is standing at the back of the Joint, the Hard Rock casino's chic concert hall. He's rocking out to the wailing guitars and pounding drums of a makeshift band consisting of a blackjack high roller and thee of his musician friends. It's been a dream of this player, Jeff Armstrong, to perform at the Joint, and Cyr sold the idea to the hard Rock bosses. In return, Armstrong will spend a couple of hours at the tables betting $10,000 a hand. But for now, he's up onstage, opening for the Fabulous Thunderbirds.

Cyr's cell phone rings. He answers, listens, then speaks to Kristi, a Hilton VIP hostess, about a suite assignment. "OK, I'm on my way. I'll be there in five minutes. Hold tight." He pauses, then says, "Relax, Kristi! Who's the man, baby? I'll handle it."

He hurries down toward the stage and gives a thumbs-up to Mr. A. (Unless the two are extremely friendly, a casino guy addresses his player by the first initial of his last name. Calling him by his first name is too familiar, while using his full last name could, inadvertently, compromise his privacy.) Cyr signals that he's got to run, but he'll be back in a while. then he blows through the casino and out the front door, where his silver Trans Am sits at the curb, as if he's the only car owner who happened to drive to the 600-room Hard Rock that Saturday night. He dukes off a 10-spot to the parking attendant in the valet cubicle, who hands him his keys. He hops in the car and peels out for points north.

At the Las Vegas Hilton, Cyr heads down the back hallway that connects the sky Villa elevators to the Hilton's high-limit pit. He slides through a side door and strolls toward the lone dice table in the far corner of the room, out of place among all the baccarat and blackjack games. It sounds wrong, too: The crap table cacophony disturbs the typically tense and tempered air of a high roller room.

Whooping it up at the table are More Cohn and a half-dozen of his dice-shooting cronies. The setup is complete with a full crap crew -- two dealers, stickman, boxman, and floorman -- and the highest maximums in the dice universe. Cohn is Cyr's new biggest player, with a $10 million line of casino credit. He's the CEO of a major California corporation, and he has the gambling gene.

Tonight's his first time playing at the Hilton. Cyr has already met him at the airport with a limo and a $5,000 bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild; ushered him up to the 13,200-square-foot Tuscany Villa; made sure his credit line was ready at the cage, secured a reservation for eight at Le Montrachet, the Hilton's tres chic French restaurant at that time (it no longer exists); and had the crap table moved into the high-limit room (the first time such a thing had ever been done at the Hilton).

The hoopla from the players indicates that the table's hot. Cyr stands back a bit at first and watches as Cohn tosses the cost of a new Cadillac across the crap layout. The boxman, Mel, signals Cyr with three fingers pointing up: He's ahead 300 large.

Cyr's mentors, the old-school Las Vegas hosts and operations bosses, taught him that you don't host a sucker while he's gambling. You don't hang out at the table. You never distract him. You let hi play his game. When he's through, you can do all the hosting you want. But Cyr has never subscribed to the conventional wisdom. He's especially irreverent when it comes to the gospel according to the old school. He enjoys hanging around his players at the games. He gets a thrill out of watching whales make bets the size of an average worker's annual wage.

By 1994, Jimmy Newman, head honcho at the Hilton, had been marketing to international whales for nearly a decade. During that time, all he had in his lodging inventory were the nine Classic Suites on the 29th floor. Built in 1986, they were aging and small at 1,200 to 2,000 square feet. Newman desperately needed big villas to accommodate Asian high rollers, many of whom wanted to come in large groups. And he got them.

The largest of the 30th floor Sky Villas, the Verona, is 15,400 square feet; Hilton marketing claims it's the largest hotel suite in the world. The Verona features 30-foot-high neo-Michelangelo-style hand-painted ceilings, three bedrooms, three and a half bathrooms, two hot tubs, two fireplaces, a huge living room, cozy media room, a glassed-in observation area overlooking the Strip, a 2,000-pound marble dining room table (it's not among the expensive trinkets that the Hilton fears will disappear), more tons of marble for the floors, pillars, columns, arches, pedestals, counters, and statues, and gold gold gold -- lamps, chairs, faucets, even gold-threaded pillowcases. At the touch of a remote high-definition TVs appear from hidden consoles at the feet of the beds. The $85,000 Bosendorfer grand piano had to be airlifted in during construction, before the roof was sealed.

One wing of the Verona Villa is built around an outdoor pool and garden; sliding glass doors from the master bedroom open onto the "back yard." There's a swimming pool and two hot tubs, plus a pond with koi (large goldfish that symbolize luck and longevity to Asians), barbecue grill, sumptuous turf with room for two removable tent pavilions, and a fountain.

One night a whale was wasted, and Cyr and a butler literally had to help him into the sack in the Verona's master bedroom. He woke up the next morning in a huge room he didn't recognize, and couldn't remember how he'd gotten there. He called his butler and said, "What did you put in the champagne last night? I must be dreaming. I keep hearing the sound of a lawnmower outside."

The butler responded, "Well, sir, they're cutting your grass."

"I'm at the top of a tower, aren't I?"

"Yes, sir, but you've got a big back yard. Hit the button on the console next to your bed to open the drapes" -- and there was the landscaping crew tidying up the large lawn on the roof of the Hilton.

For more than six years, the Sky Villas couldn't be rented for any amount of money. Cyr once had the following conversation with Bill Gates, who wanted to stay in the Verona during the huge Comdex convention, at which he usually makes the keynote speech:

Gates: "How much to rent one of the Sky Villas?"

Cyr: "Sorry, Mr. G. They're not for rent."

Gates: "Really? Not even for twenty thousand, twenty-five thousand, a night?"

Cyr: "No, sir. The Villas are reserved for players who bet twenty-five thousand a hand."

These days, though, you can pay to stay in the Villas. The Verona runs $17,500 per night, but if you stay three nights, you get a $2,500 per night price break, so it'll only set you back 45 large for a long weekend.

The preceding was adapted from Whale Hunt in the Desert: The Secret Las Vegas of Superhost Steve Cyr, in which Deke Castleman reveals the evolution of the casino host and the stories of men and women who bet $20,000 a hand.

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