Wynn Casino Las Vegas opens its doors

Steve Wynn has designed some of the most famous hotel-casinos ever built like The Mirage, Treasure Island and Bellagio.

Wynn is gambling once more on Thursday, with the opening of the $2.7 billion Wynn Las Vegas, his triumphant return to the Las Vegas Strip.

Wynn, 63, is wagering his reputation on Wynn Las Vegas and the adjacent Encore, a $1.4 billion hotel-casino scheduled to open in 2008.

But the high-end market he once dominated has changed since he lost control of Mirage Resorts and sold it to MGM billionaire Kirk Kerkorian in 2000.

MGM Mirage Inc., which now runs the palaces he built, controls the majority of the hotel rooms on the Strip, now that it has completed its merger with Mandalay Resort Group.

And Wynn's new hotels will put him in direct competition with Las Vegas Sands Corp., parent of the Venetian megaresort and the 3,000-room Palazzo, which will open across from Wynn Las Vegas in 2007.