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Steve Cyr's Press

Steve Cyr Press

USA Today / May 17, 2001

LAS VEGAS — Steve Cyr rumbled into town in his Camaro nearly 20 years ago. He was a teenager looking for a little hotel experience so he could go back to Kansas and help his father run their Howard Johnson's.

He still drives a Camaro, but Kansas was never home again.

Now 37, Cyr (pronounced seer) worked various Vegas jobs before finding his calling seven years ago as a casino host. Definition: a person who ensures that his gambling establishment becomes home to the vaunted high roller.

"When I first got here, I was immediately hooked," he says, sucking down a beer at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, his home base here. "I couldn't believe the numbers."

Hosts get a salary plus a cut of their players' losses. Although there are hundreds of hosts in Las Vegas, Cyr is one of the best.

Last year, he says, he banked in the healthy six figures and now is "pushing hard for seven."

Everything about Cyr is a brassy shout, a strangely seductive blend of P.T. Barnum hucksterism — he assures a visitor that a Hollywood movie is in the works about his heady life — and simple pushiness.

"I never take no for an answer," he says. "I'm a salesman."

Cyr has a steady stable of about 70 high rollers. He likes to say that one-third have so much money that losses are insignificant, another third "shouldn't be here" (but they won't hear that from Steve), and the last third are younger players, in their 20s and 30s, who are still feeling their way.

"I think our generation is particularly interested in gambling because we haven't had to risk anything," Cyr says. "No draft, no wars and jobs galore."

But, he adds, don't confuse youth with dot-commer money. That gang never found its way to the high-stakes tables.

"Forget doctors and lawyers, too," he says. "Give me restaurant and bar owners, developers and stockbrokers. I want risk-takers. I want players."

Whenever one of his players does call, Cyr is ready to move heaven and earth. That could mean zipping the guest to Pebble Beach for a quick round of golf (no charge, of course), or making introductions to visiting gambling acquaintances such as Hugh Hefner and Don Henley.

But why do any of these obviously wealthy, successful gamblers need Cyr to navigate Las Vegas' neon river?

"It's all about ego," he says. "All I'm doing is feeding it."

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