Bobby Baldwin is leaving MGM Resorts International after nearly two decades as a top executive with the gaming giant.
Baldwin, 68, a longtime protégé of Steve Wynn’s who went on to head development of MGM’s massive CityCenter resort complex, will relinquish his positions by the end of year, the company said. He is CityCenter’s president and CEO and also chief customer development officer for MGM at the corporate level.
“Few have played a more central role in the growth and transformation of the gaming industry than Bobby, and his contributions over more than three decades are immeasurable,” the company said in a statement. “MGM Resorts thanks Bobby for all he has done for the company and all he has meant to this industry and wishes him the best for the future.”
No reason was given for his departure, though news reports speculate that it may be connected with injuries he suffered last year in a fall at CityCenter’s Aria resort casino. He broke his shoulders, pelvis and ribs in the accident and required stitches for head injuries.
Baldwin entered the gaming spotlight in 1978 after winning the World Series of Poker Main Event at 28, the youngest player up to that time to take the title. A 2003 inductee into the Poker Hall of Fame, he has since win four individual WSOP championship bracelets. The high-end poker room at Bellagio Las Vegas on the Strip is named “Bobby’s Room.”
It was that first WSOP win that brought him to the attention of Wynn, who he joined in 1982 as a consultant at the Golden Nugget in Downtown Las Vegas. He became the hotel’s president two years later, then helped Wynn develop the ground-breaking Mirage, which opened on the Strip in 1989, and served under him as president of Bellagio when it opened in 1998.
He was chief financial officer of Wynn’s listed parent company, Mirage Resorts, when in 2000 it was taken over by Kirk Kerkorian’s MGM Grand Inc. He chose to stay on with MGM. In 2005, he was named CEO of Project City Center—the ambitious four-hotel complex which opened in the teeth of the global financial crisis at a cost of $8.5 billion—and as its president he would steer it to success.
