LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — Gaming transformed Las Vegas from a train stop in the desert to one of the most desirable destinations in the world. But the Strip we see today bears very little resemblance to the one seen by visitors in the late 70’s and 80’s.
Innovators like Benny Binion, Kirk Kerkorian, and Bob Stupak, among others, initiated the seismic shift, with Stupak staking his claim on a site that has since become iconic.
“My grandfather ran a dice game in Pittsburgh for 45 years. My dad had been exposed to illegal gambling for essentially his whole life.”
Bob Stupak knew a lot about gaming from an early age, but a visit to Las Vegas informed him of what to do with that knowledge.
“When he came to Vegas visit, he had been to Caesars Palace and it made a massive impression on him and from that point forward he was like, look I really want to come to Vegas and I want to do something here,’ so that was his inspiration,” says Nevada Stupak, Bob’s son and the CEO of Stupak Las Vegas, a corporate event planning company.
So, at the age of 29, Stupak let inspiration guide him.
“He came here in the early 70s, and he had a museum that included a replica of a million-dollar bill – come see what a million-dollar bill looks like. Well, the museum burned down and the Treasury Department was worried, and he said no, ‘there was no money in there, I said, it’s what it looks like,’” says Las Vegas historian Michael Green.
That 1974 fire posed no setback for Stupak. He just rebuilt on the very same spot on Las Vegas Boulevard, and on July 13th, 1979, Vegas World was born. The property boasted a 15-thousand square foot casino with 90 hotel rooms in an eight-story tower – but he needed more space.
“He was, let’s call it the King of the Low Roller, right, so he created packages for enticing people to come gamble but on a lower-stakes level. And with that, he would have so many people sign up for these packages that he would run out of rooms, periodically, so he was always financing new towers,” says Nevada. “He started with a hundred, then he made it a 500-room expansion, and a couple of years after that, he did another expansion.”
And Stupak had no shortage of tricks up his sleeve, all designed to lure in more customers.
“At one point he wanted to have a replica of King Kong climbing up the side and he did all kinds of giveaways, and all sorts of things,” says Green. “He fits in with that group you had back then, like Jacky Gaughn, Benny Binion, Sam Boyd, guys who had personality, sometimes came up with some wild ideas, and often the wild ideas worked.”
His innovation would continue on the very same property where it began, with the decision to build the tallest building west of the Mississippi.
Construction on what would one day be known as the Stratosphere started in 1992. Vegas World closed its doors in February of 1995 to become part of the Strat project.
Bob Stupak resigned from the Stratosphere project less than three months after it opened its doors, but he continued to be a fixture in Las Vegas until his death in 2009.
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