When Parry Thomas arrived in Las Vegas from Salt Lake City in the mid-1950s, his job was to decide whether to close a bank that was part owned by his Utah employers. He kept the Bank of Las Vegas open and made it so successful he stayed in Las Vegas full time. Later known as Valley Bank, Thomas pioneered investment in the casino industry, which was at the time limited to union pension funds and other often shady investment vehicles.
Joined by his partner, Jerome Mack, Thomas routinely invested in Las Vegas casinos and is responsible for giving Steve Wynn his start.
“Everything I built—the Golden Nugget, Mirage, Treasure Island, Wynn-Encore—were because of him,” Wynn Resorts Chairman Steve Wynn said about Thomas. “You name the buildings, including UNLV, and Parry Thomas’ fingerprints are everywhere in this valley.”
But it was Thomas’ involvement with Howard Hughes that changed the gaming industry—and Nevada—forever. When Thomas first arrived in Las Vegas there was a prohibition against corporations owning casinos. The law was in place because regulators didn’t want to license at the shareholders of the corporations. Thomas realized that the growth of the casino industry would be stifiled by such a law, so along with Mack (a Democrat) and Republican Thomas, they worked both sides of the aisle. It still took years to accomplished, but it was crucial to the state.
“That change in the law—a monumental feat at the time but a bill most Nevadans didn’t even notice was exactly what made Vegas what it is today,” Thomas’ daughter Karen wrote years later. “That is the big secret. Without it, Vegas would still be in the dark ages. Parry and Jerry knew if they brought in corporate gaming, it would bring in the SEC—the laws of full disclosure and federal prosecution—and that, in itself, would eventually chase the mob out of town.”
From there, Thomas worked with Howard Hughes to buy up half-a-dozen Las Vegas casinos, and removed the stigma of mob involvement in the industry.
Steve Wynn says he’s organizing a service for Thomas at Encore on September 6.
