Dubbed the “Queen of Las Vegas,” Elaine Wynn is an American businesswoman and has a net worth of $2 billion dollars which makes her one of the richest people in Nevada. She co-founded Mirage Resorts and Wynn Resorts with her former husband, Steve Wynn who she had been married and divorced twice.
Wynn was born to a middle-class Jewish family on April 28, 1942, in New York City. She graduated from George Washington University, where she received a bachelor of arts degree in Political Science in 1964.
After marrying Steve during her third year of college, Wynn worked Sundays at his father’s Maryland bingo hall before the couple moved to Las Vegas. They launched Mirage Resorts in 1973 and went on to cofound Wynn Resorts in 2002. Wynn served as a board member for 13 years until 2015.
Wynn is the company’s largest shareholder, with a 9% stake valued in May 2018 at nearly $2 billion. In 2018, after revelations of Steve Wynn’s reported sexual harassment of multiple Wynn employees, and payments to cover up those allegations that were kept secret from the board of directors, he sold his 12% share of the company and agreed to return voting rights to Elaine Wynn (which she had signed away during their 2010 divorce agreement).
Her ex-husband and cofounder Steve Wynn cashed out entirely and stepped down as CEO amid sexual misconduct allegations, which he has denied.
In June 2018, Wynn successfully led a shareholder proxy campaign to remove John Hagenbuch from the board, due to his conflict of interest created by ties to the company’s former CEO
