They say deaths come in threes, but I’ve never really found that to be the case. And if it does happen sometimes, it’s very random with little connection between the people who pass. But last week, the old wives tale came true in its most depressing manner. Bob McMonigle, Norm DesRosiers and Sol Kerzner all passed away in that short period. I knew all three and by all accounts, including my own, they were extraordinary men.
Bob McMonigle got into gaming in the mid-1980s after a successful career in the magazine business. That is what originally endeared him to me because he could “relate” to my business. One of his first jobs was with Rolling Stone magazine and how it was distributed. In those days, it was all newsstand and subscription. And with Rolling Stone, one of the first “alternative” magazines, McMonigle had lots of stories about Jann Wenner, the founder of the magazine, and all the other cowboys he brought on board.
But as good as he was at distributing magazines, McMonigle was even better at selling slot machines. In 1984, he joined a little company called IGT. Now IGT when it started competed against the 800-pound gorilla at the time, Bally’s, which controlled the market in Nevada and in the few other jurisdictions where gaming was legal. But when Atlantic City opened up, there was a rule against one manufacturer from dominating the market in New Jersey, which opened the door for IGT. So the excellent games being developed by IGT got a test on the floor and quickly IGT began to take market share from Bally’s in big bites. But one of the reasons for IGT’s success was the way McMonigle sold the games. He was a true gentleman, low pressure, very accommodating. Led by IGT Chairman Chuck Mathewson, McMonigle was part of a team that included such powerful executives like Tom Baker, Bob Bittman, Joe Kaminkow, Jean Venneman, Ed Rogich and many others. Pretty soon, IGT was the 800-pound gorilla and Bally was looking up at them.
McMonigle was also instrumental in the founding of the Association of Gaming Equipment. He convinced bitter rivals that forming such an organization was a good thing for the industry and arranged with Frank Fahrenkopf to get American Gaming Association funding. And AGEM has played a crucial role in partnering with the AGA for various efforts, including ways to combat the crucial coronavirus crisis.
When it was time to cash out from IGT, McMonigle walked away with enough money that he never had to work again. But that wasn’t Bob. He told me he’d call some of his friends during the week, asking them to play golf with him, but they turned him down. Said they were working and couldn’t get away. Bob quickly developed a side job, producing mini-replicas of the “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign and predictably it also took off, selling tens of thousands of copies.
But Bob wasn’t done. He spent the final years of his life as a consultant to Aristocrat (not coincidentally coinciding with its meteoric rise as the top game developer in the business) and advising many other small companies how to become successful in gaming.
Bob McMonigle will be missed by his peers in the business, his friends and his family. But he will never be forgotten.
I didn’t know Norm DesRosiers as long as I knew Bob, but I came to give him the same respect that showed Bob.
I’ve always respected members of the National Indian Gaming Commission. They have a very tough job to do. First of all, the tribes they regulate always question the NIGC authority, because frankly they don’t have much. The NIGC is not like a state regulatory. The tribal regulatory organizations play that role. The NIGC is the only federal gaming regulator, with again limited authority. Norm was one of the first to remind me of this. He also reminded me that the NIGC has law enforcement authority, which kind of solidifies even the limited authority the NIGC holds.
After the NIGC, Norm spent time with various tribal gaming regulatory organizations. He was always very frank with me about which organizations did it right and which organizations cut corners, something Norm would never condone. His time with those tribes was very limited.
I last talked to Norm last year when the GGB tribal correspondent Dave Palermo passed away. Norm called me, hoping it wasn’t true. Norm respected and liked Dave, even though Dave could often be brutally honest about tribal gaming and whatever shortcomings he felt it suffered. Norm was heartbroken when I told him it was true. Just like I felt the day I learned that Norm had passed.
And finally, I didn’t know Sol Kerzner very well. I interviewed him twice: Once right before he opened Mohegan Sun in Connecticut and then right after he opened Atlantis in the Bahamas. But each time, I found him to be honest and open. He was very soft-spoken, unusual for a man considered a visionary by everyone who came in contact with him. Now, to be fair, some of my friends who worked for him said he could be impatient and explosive, but I’m just relaying what I observed. When I interviewed him, he would constantly be fingering his “worry beads,” which he told me he used to distract him from a nasty smoking habit he once had, cured by a heart attack.
As the leader of Sun International, he could be considered the father of the integrated resort. When he opened Sun City in South Africa in 1979, there was nothing like it. A man-made lake, championship golf courses, superstar entertainment and gambling were all packaged in what we would later call an integrated resort. He added four other hotels, including Lost City, which elevated even the five-star service at the main hotels. He sold his South Africa holdings in the early ‘90s.
And of course Mohegan Sun came into existence under his leadership with an entire master plan, which has been dutifully followed since it opened in 1996. Kerzner hired many executives with gaming experience and they all have told me what a leader he was and how his sometimes demanding personality actually drew out your best work.
Atlantis was the next—and final—generation of Kerzner’s brilliance. When he purchased Paradise Island from Merv Griffin in 1994, he transformed it from a rather elegant small oceanside casino resort to a spectacular revolutionary project that included 2,300 rooms, the world’s largest man-made marine environment and the biggest casino in the Caribbean when it debuted in the early 2000s.
The death of his eldest son, Butch, who was as much a partner as a son, in a plane crash in 2006, in effect ended Kerzner’s businesses. He later sold his One&Only Resorts, missed out a bid to build one of the two Singapore casinos, and basically lost interest in business.
But like McMonigle and DesRosiers, Kerzner’s legacy will outlive him. His genius in finance, design and creating new models for operating will continue to inspire others for generations to come.
