I suppose I could have posted this in the main forum, but it just didn't feel right since it seems more like a big ADVERTISEMENT for the Palms more than anything else...
http://www.sacbee.com/content/sports/story/14261432p-15074999c.html
Wheel of fortune
He runs Palms but has hand in basketball matters, too
By Paul Gutierrez -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:01 am PDT Sunday, May 28, 2006
LAS VEGAS -- It's just before 11 a.m. on a Friday, and already there is a line, 20 people deep. It wraps out of the Hart & Huntington Tattoo Company, the denizens dropping coins into the nearby slots and video poker machines as they wait to add artwork to their bodies.
The floor of the Palms Casino Resort is beginning to buzz in anticipation of the weekend crowd, a throng that will include a multitude of paparazzi-inducing celebrity.
To George Maloof Jr., the Palms' operator and, some would say, the brains behind the entire Maloof Empire, whose holdings include the Kings and Monarchs, it is merely business as usual.
"It's like having kids, I think," said Maloof, a 41-year-old bachelor. "It's fun, creating atmosphere. You can't take yourself too seriously, but you have to stay focused. You have a bad (financial) quarter, that's bad. It's a day-to-day thing with the Palms brand.
"I don't want to settle. I want to create, expand, do more. I'm still young."
The Palms, while less than five years old, is aging gracefully in the fickle market that is Las Vegas, as evidenced by its ongoing $650 million expansion.
And what's good for the Palms is good for the Maloof family.
As the main money engine among the Maloofs' businesses, the privately owned Palms generates $300 million to $400 million in revenue a year, with a 20 percent return, gaming experts estimate. Maloof said the profit margin is better than that, without elaborating. By comparison, the average return for a Las Vegas casino is 13 percent.
Sure, it would be natural to assume if the Palms is the Maloofs' main money engine, it also is oiled by the family's other high-profile investment -- the Kings -- in untold millions in free advertising. And that the Palms' runaway financial success allows the Maloofs to break even or possibly lose money on the Kings, who were valued at $345 million, 13th-highest in the NBA, by Forbes magazine in 2005, while boasting the 15th-highest payroll at $58.8 million this season despite playing in revenue-challenged Arco Arena.
As such, it would not be hard to imagine the Palms keeping the Maloofs financially stable enough to wait out a new publicly financed arena in Sacramento instead of moving the franchise to greener pastures. Hello, Anaheim? Viva Las Vegas?
A big leap in thinking? Perhaps. A logical leap? Well …
Maloof is quick to say that line of thinking is "not accurate."
"They are two separate businesses, different types of businesses, and they've both been successful," he said. "They're different types of success, of course. The Palms needs more cash flow. It's a different business model.
"I'm fascinated by the Kings and Sacramento, the day-by-day relationship there. … Hopefully, we can stay there. We're all trying. We have no desire to leave."
Still, while admitting the Kings and the Palms occasionally scratch each other's backs, Maloof acknowledged he was heavily involved in convincing his older brothers Gavin and Joe to pull the trigger on the Peja Stojakovic-for-Ron Artest trade in January.
"My brothers run the team, but we all give input," he said. "I pushed a little harder for that, though. … My brothers were probably on the fence a little more, so I pushed them over it."
He added that younger brother Phil also supported the deal and that he could not take "credit" for facilitating the trade that rejuvenated interest and added victories.
"That's what makes a great product, a uniqueness -- we listen to each other," he said, adding that his brothers often offer advice on goings-on at the Palms.
"Since my dad died, we've had 26 years of where we could screw things up (in the family business), and you screw things up by not listening to each other.
"When there's big decisions, we all talk about it."
Maloof said the family members -- including his mother, Colleen, and sister Adrienne -- communicate regularly. Among their topics is who should coach of the Kings, but "it's not like we have meetings" to discuss strategy on building synergy between the Palms and Kings.
They don't have to, their casino competitors say.
Alan Feldman, senior vice president of public affairs for MGM/Mirage, said it's impossible to quantify in dollars how much the Palms benefits from the Maloof family owning the Kings.
"The Maloofs get a little more press because they own a sports franchise," Feldman said. "It's sexier owning a sports franchise than say, a tire company."
Jim Bowen, the chief financial officer of the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, agreed, saying the Palms attracts NBA players, and that helps draw young celebrities from the entertainment world.
"The celebrity factor that athletes have is good for a casino," Bowen said. "A lot of people that want to go out for the total casino experience want that celebrity factor.
"It's the see-and-be-seen kind of thing."
Maloof said NBA players are treated "like anybody else that gambles, or is a high-roller." In other words, NBA players who spend money at the Palms get red-carpet treatment.
It's a customer-first philosophy that was fostered in another Las Vegas -- this one in New Mexico, a quaint if dusty town nestled in the northeastern part of the state with a population of about 15,000.
Maloof's grandparents were Lebanese immigrants who ran the town's general store.
George Sr. later became the state's sole Coors beer distributor, a highly profitable venture, and it was on trips to Sin City from the family's new home in Albuquerque with his parents that a young George Jr. found his calling.
"Literally my favorite all-time show was 'Vega$,' with (Robert Urich as) Dan Tanna," Maloof said of the 1970s TV show. "I used to watch them film it at the Desert Inn. … I was such a 'Vega$' groupie."
Maloof was playing football at tiny Trinity University in San Antonio when another road trip to southern Nevada changed his outlook on life.
"I transferred within 24 hours, without even looking at (UNLV)," he said. "I ate, did a little bit of homework and gambled every night for about a year."
Maloof also earned a degree in hotel management while learning the market, how to appeal to locals. The Fiesta Casino Hotel was born.
"When I got out of school, I got with my family and said, 'Let's invest in Las Vegas. Let's do it. Let's find a piece of property that doesn't compete with the Strip,' " he said. "I immediately started looking for property … and I found a piece of land in North Las Vegas."
The $25 million Fiesta (George said his family put in $5 million and borrowed $20 million) was revolutionary in that it was a bigger property that depended almost solely on locals. That thought stuck with Maloof when he began mulling the Palms.
The Palms, which cost $265 million to build, opened less than two months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a time when tourism in Las Vegas was reeling.
"I wanted to create the ultimate hybrid hotel, one that catered to the local people as well as this young, affluent crowd coming in from Southern California that comes in on the weekend that might not necessarily be interested in playing slots, but playing table games and going to clubs and restaurants," Maloof said. "It was challenging because people questioned whether or not those two groups could coexist -- the local group, that's usually here during the day, during the week, and then this really hip, young, celebrity crowd that comes on the weekend."
The first stroke of genius was allowing MTV in 2002 to film its popular reality show "The Real World" at the Palms, making the property a lightening rod for pop culture.
"It helped create a new identity" of celebrity for the Palms, Maloof said. "It was the first time (TV) cameras were allowed in a casino."
Since then, "Inked," "Celebrity Poker," "Party at the Palms," "CSI" and "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" have taken up residence at the Palms.
"That whole glamour and that whole action of Las Vegas, I wanted to create a place that represented, to me, the real reason people came to Las Vegas," Maloof said. "That's to come and party and have fun."
But with the hotel one mile off the Strip, he also needed to appeal to the natives in case the tourists could not find their way up Flamingo Road.
"I needed to create a place that could suck people in from the Strip and, in case that didn't work, I could hedge my bets and cater to the local market, which I knew very well from operating the Fiesta," he said. "So it was, 'Let's see how it goes, and if it doesn't work, I can go local.' That was kind of the idea."
He designed the property so the east end of the building was geared to locals, what with the 14-screen movie theater, the food court and arcade and the sports book on that side. The west side has the restaurants, Ghost Bar, the nightclub Rain and the tattoo parlor.
"It was all deliberate," he said. "As we expand, it's the same concept."
The Palms is a hit with locals as well as the well-heeled, Maloof's baby being the readers' picks in the Las Vegas Review-Journal's most recent Best of Las Vegas poll for: place to spot celebrities, movie theater, singles bar (Ghost Bar), paying slots and video poker payout schedules.
All 35 floors of the new Fantasy Tower, with its high-end and themed suites, are due to open by August, and the top floor will be a "reinvented" Playboy Club with a retractable roof, the lone such club in the world. Condominiums called Palms Place will open by the end of 2007.
"That will complete the master plan of the property," Maloof said.
And in February, when the NBA brings its All-Star Game to town, the Palms will be the host hotel.
Maloof, though, does not see the NBA permanently putting a team in Las Vegas, not if the caveat is for casinos to take the league off the sports books' boards (the Palms already is forbidden from taking bets on NBA games because the Maloofs own the Kings).
"I'd say no -- I mean, it's great for the community, but the bottom line is, what's in it for me?" Maloof said. "I've always struggled with that -- the league, not the gaming commission" having issues with accepting bets on the NBA.
Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, meanwhile, credited Maloof with bringing All-Star Weekend to town.
"I could not have done it without him," Goodman said. "He's the one. He and his brothers came in with the idea, and I was just the politic man for him, really. Whatever influence I had, it's because he asked me for it.
"Look, the guy is cutting edge."
And time is cutting short.
It's Friday afternoon, and the anticipation of the coming weekend crowd is palpable. Maloof, whose date to the Palms' opening was Paris Hilton, prepares for the regulars as well as the celebrities.
"From Day 1, the place has just done really well," he said. "In a highly competitive market, Las Vegas is without question the most competitive … gaming market in the world, if not in any business. Battling the Strip day by day is, well, you've got to be focused."
About the writer: The Bee's Paul Gutierrez can be reached at (916) 326-5556 or pgutierrez@sacbee.com.
http://www.sacbee.com/content/sports/story/14261432p-15074999c.html
Wheel of fortune
He runs Palms but has hand in basketball matters, too
By Paul Gutierrez -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:01 am PDT Sunday, May 28, 2006
LAS VEGAS -- It's just before 11 a.m. on a Friday, and already there is a line, 20 people deep. It wraps out of the Hart & Huntington Tattoo Company, the denizens dropping coins into the nearby slots and video poker machines as they wait to add artwork to their bodies.
The floor of the Palms Casino Resort is beginning to buzz in anticipation of the weekend crowd, a throng that will include a multitude of paparazzi-inducing celebrity.
To George Maloof Jr., the Palms' operator and, some would say, the brains behind the entire Maloof Empire, whose holdings include the Kings and Monarchs, it is merely business as usual.
"It's like having kids, I think," said Maloof, a 41-year-old bachelor. "It's fun, creating atmosphere. You can't take yourself too seriously, but you have to stay focused. You have a bad (financial) quarter, that's bad. It's a day-to-day thing with the Palms brand.
"I don't want to settle. I want to create, expand, do more. I'm still young."
The Palms, while less than five years old, is aging gracefully in the fickle market that is Las Vegas, as evidenced by its ongoing $650 million expansion.
And what's good for the Palms is good for the Maloof family.
As the main money engine among the Maloofs' businesses, the privately owned Palms generates $300 million to $400 million in revenue a year, with a 20 percent return, gaming experts estimate. Maloof said the profit margin is better than that, without elaborating. By comparison, the average return for a Las Vegas casino is 13 percent.
Sure, it would be natural to assume if the Palms is the Maloofs' main money engine, it also is oiled by the family's other high-profile investment -- the Kings -- in untold millions in free advertising. And that the Palms' runaway financial success allows the Maloofs to break even or possibly lose money on the Kings, who were valued at $345 million, 13th-highest in the NBA, by Forbes magazine in 2005, while boasting the 15th-highest payroll at $58.8 million this season despite playing in revenue-challenged Arco Arena.
As such, it would not be hard to imagine the Palms keeping the Maloofs financially stable enough to wait out a new publicly financed arena in Sacramento instead of moving the franchise to greener pastures. Hello, Anaheim? Viva Las Vegas?
A big leap in thinking? Perhaps. A logical leap? Well …
Maloof is quick to say that line of thinking is "not accurate."
"They are two separate businesses, different types of businesses, and they've both been successful," he said. "They're different types of success, of course. The Palms needs more cash flow. It's a different business model.
"I'm fascinated by the Kings and Sacramento, the day-by-day relationship there. … Hopefully, we can stay there. We're all trying. We have no desire to leave."
Still, while admitting the Kings and the Palms occasionally scratch each other's backs, Maloof acknowledged he was heavily involved in convincing his older brothers Gavin and Joe to pull the trigger on the Peja Stojakovic-for-Ron Artest trade in January.
"My brothers run the team, but we all give input," he said. "I pushed a little harder for that, though. … My brothers were probably on the fence a little more, so I pushed them over it."
He added that younger brother Phil also supported the deal and that he could not take "credit" for facilitating the trade that rejuvenated interest and added victories.
"That's what makes a great product, a uniqueness -- we listen to each other," he said, adding that his brothers often offer advice on goings-on at the Palms.
"Since my dad died, we've had 26 years of where we could screw things up (in the family business), and you screw things up by not listening to each other.
"When there's big decisions, we all talk about it."
Maloof said the family members -- including his mother, Colleen, and sister Adrienne -- communicate regularly. Among their topics is who should coach of the Kings, but "it's not like we have meetings" to discuss strategy on building synergy between the Palms and Kings.
They don't have to, their casino competitors say.
Alan Feldman, senior vice president of public affairs for MGM/Mirage, said it's impossible to quantify in dollars how much the Palms benefits from the Maloof family owning the Kings.
"The Maloofs get a little more press because they own a sports franchise," Feldman said. "It's sexier owning a sports franchise than say, a tire company."
Jim Bowen, the chief financial officer of the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, agreed, saying the Palms attracts NBA players, and that helps draw young celebrities from the entertainment world.
"The celebrity factor that athletes have is good for a casino," Bowen said. "A lot of people that want to go out for the total casino experience want that celebrity factor.
"It's the see-and-be-seen kind of thing."
Maloof said NBA players are treated "like anybody else that gambles, or is a high-roller." In other words, NBA players who spend money at the Palms get red-carpet treatment.
It's a customer-first philosophy that was fostered in another Las Vegas -- this one in New Mexico, a quaint if dusty town nestled in the northeastern part of the state with a population of about 15,000.
Maloof's grandparents were Lebanese immigrants who ran the town's general store.
George Sr. later became the state's sole Coors beer distributor, a highly profitable venture, and it was on trips to Sin City from the family's new home in Albuquerque with his parents that a young George Jr. found his calling.
"Literally my favorite all-time show was 'Vega$,' with (Robert Urich as) Dan Tanna," Maloof said of the 1970s TV show. "I used to watch them film it at the Desert Inn. … I was such a 'Vega$' groupie."
Maloof was playing football at tiny Trinity University in San Antonio when another road trip to southern Nevada changed his outlook on life.
"I transferred within 24 hours, without even looking at (UNLV)," he said. "I ate, did a little bit of homework and gambled every night for about a year."
Maloof also earned a degree in hotel management while learning the market, how to appeal to locals. The Fiesta Casino Hotel was born.
"When I got out of school, I got with my family and said, 'Let's invest in Las Vegas. Let's do it. Let's find a piece of property that doesn't compete with the Strip,' " he said. "I immediately started looking for property … and I found a piece of land in North Las Vegas."
The $25 million Fiesta (George said his family put in $5 million and borrowed $20 million) was revolutionary in that it was a bigger property that depended almost solely on locals. That thought stuck with Maloof when he began mulling the Palms.
The Palms, which cost $265 million to build, opened less than two months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a time when tourism in Las Vegas was reeling.
"I wanted to create the ultimate hybrid hotel, one that catered to the local people as well as this young, affluent crowd coming in from Southern California that comes in on the weekend that might not necessarily be interested in playing slots, but playing table games and going to clubs and restaurants," Maloof said. "It was challenging because people questioned whether or not those two groups could coexist -- the local group, that's usually here during the day, during the week, and then this really hip, young, celebrity crowd that comes on the weekend."
The first stroke of genius was allowing MTV in 2002 to film its popular reality show "The Real World" at the Palms, making the property a lightening rod for pop culture.
"It helped create a new identity" of celebrity for the Palms, Maloof said. "It was the first time (TV) cameras were allowed in a casino."
Since then, "Inked," "Celebrity Poker," "Party at the Palms," "CSI" and "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" have taken up residence at the Palms.
"That whole glamour and that whole action of Las Vegas, I wanted to create a place that represented, to me, the real reason people came to Las Vegas," Maloof said. "That's to come and party and have fun."
But with the hotel one mile off the Strip, he also needed to appeal to the natives in case the tourists could not find their way up Flamingo Road.
"I needed to create a place that could suck people in from the Strip and, in case that didn't work, I could hedge my bets and cater to the local market, which I knew very well from operating the Fiesta," he said. "So it was, 'Let's see how it goes, and if it doesn't work, I can go local.' That was kind of the idea."
He designed the property so the east end of the building was geared to locals, what with the 14-screen movie theater, the food court and arcade and the sports book on that side. The west side has the restaurants, Ghost Bar, the nightclub Rain and the tattoo parlor.
"It was all deliberate," he said. "As we expand, it's the same concept."
The Palms is a hit with locals as well as the well-heeled, Maloof's baby being the readers' picks in the Las Vegas Review-Journal's most recent Best of Las Vegas poll for: place to spot celebrities, movie theater, singles bar (Ghost Bar), paying slots and video poker payout schedules.
All 35 floors of the new Fantasy Tower, with its high-end and themed suites, are due to open by August, and the top floor will be a "reinvented" Playboy Club with a retractable roof, the lone such club in the world. Condominiums called Palms Place will open by the end of 2007.
"That will complete the master plan of the property," Maloof said.
And in February, when the NBA brings its All-Star Game to town, the Palms will be the host hotel.
Maloof, though, does not see the NBA permanently putting a team in Las Vegas, not if the caveat is for casinos to take the league off the sports books' boards (the Palms already is forbidden from taking bets on NBA games because the Maloofs own the Kings).
"I'd say no -- I mean, it's great for the community, but the bottom line is, what's in it for me?" Maloof said. "I've always struggled with that -- the league, not the gaming commission" having issues with accepting bets on the NBA.
Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, meanwhile, credited Maloof with bringing All-Star Weekend to town.
"I could not have done it without him," Goodman said. "He's the one. He and his brothers came in with the idea, and I was just the politic man for him, really. Whatever influence I had, it's because he asked me for it.
"Look, the guy is cutting edge."
And time is cutting short.
It's Friday afternoon, and the anticipation of the coming weekend crowd is palpable. Maloof, whose date to the Palms' opening was Paris Hilton, prepares for the regulars as well as the celebrities.
"From Day 1, the place has just done really well," he said. "In a highly competitive market, Las Vegas is without question the most competitive … gaming market in the world, if not in any business. Battling the Strip day by day is, well, you've got to be focused."
About the writer: The Bee's Paul Gutierrez can be reached at (916) 326-5556 or pgutierrez@sacbee.com.
). Really a cool bar and it has a balcony with glass "walls" that you go out on and look out at the strip...it basically looks like you are out on a ledge with no walls. Drinks are pretty pricey and we stayed for about an hour. 
