In 1973, Mr. Kerkorian opened the city’s first mega-resort, the MGM Grand Hotel, a $107 million property. Modeled after the Grand Hotel of the 1932 MGM classic movie of the same name, the Hollywood-themed resort was the biggest, most spectacular hotel in the world. The hotel was 26 stories high, contained 2,084 rooms, a 1,200-seat showroom, a shopping arcade, a movie theater, and a jai alai stadium. There was more to do at the MGM Grand than at any previous Las Vegas hotel and it compared favorably with resorts around the world.

Twenty years later, after a tragic fire broke out in the first MGM Grand in 1980, a second MGM Grand debuted in December 1993, the key piece in the revolution that reshaped Las Vegas. The 5,005-room hotel not only reigned as the largest hotel in the world, it fused a range of ideas that had come to reinforce leisure. The new MGM Grand simultaneously revolutionized Las Vegas’ vacation and convention business and fashioned itself as the “City of Entertainment” at precisely the moment that entertainment rose to the pinnacle in the American economy. Mr. Kerkorian and his team recognized the transformation of Las Vegas and created a property that could support it.As national tastes loosened and Americans asked to have their wishes fulfilled, Las Vegas, ever a city of excess, answered with the opening of The Mirage in 1989. The Mirage forever altered not only the Las Vegas game, but also the nature of entertainment in the United States. Las Vegas had always provided a luxury experience at a middle-class price and until The Mirage opened, Las Vegas amenities were limited. After its opening, Las Vegas promised more to everyone. Not only did gamblers come to the transformed desert town, but people who wanted to see the elaborate spectacle came as well.