January 24, 2007 | 2:23
pm
Three tidbits involving more money than you will ever have:
1.
The Smoking Gun has the paperwork for the lawsuit between Steve Wynn and the insurance company Lloyd's of London. Readers of the Buffet will recall that back in September Wynn punched his elbow through Picasso's "Le Reve." This was shortly after Wynn had agreed to sell the painting for $139 million. Lloyd's agreed to pay the costs to fix and restore the painting; nonetheless, after the accident, the sale fell through. A Freudian might say Wynn never wanted to sell it anyway. Now to the lawsuit, if I understand this legal mumbo jumbo right: Even repaired Wynn estimates the value of his Picasso painting has now dropped to a mere $85 million. So, Wynn wants the insurance company to compensate him $54 million for the value the painting lost to his elbow. Wynn by the way bought "Le Reve" in 1997 for only $48.4 million. So, if things work out Wynn's way, that elbow was a pretty good mistake for him to make. Wynn claims he is entitled to keep the restored painting as well as to collect a check from the insurance company for $5.6 million more than he originally paid for "Le Reve." With deals like that available why not poke a fork through the rest of the collection and build another resort with the profits?
January 26, 2006 | 6:51
am
Up on Forbes's web site is a ranking of the "Celebrity 100" calculating the earnings of the creative, athletic, beautiful and famous. After an absence from this list, the bitch is back, as Caesars headliner Elton John is the only Vegas local in the top ten (sitting pretty at #9) below Madonna but above Tom Cruise.
John's estimated pay last year: $44 Million. That may seem like all your dreams come true, but $44 million is really just change between the couch cushions if you are a billionaire and Nevada has four of those, according to the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans. Three will come as no surprise to locals. Number 235 is William Samuel Boyd whose Boyd Gaming last year swallowed Coast Casinos. Number 164 is Steve Wynn whose monstrously large vision is fairly credited with creating contemporary Las Vegas. And, at number 15, Wynn's rival Sheldon Adelson, the son of a cab driver, who owns the Venetian. The final Nevada billionaire may be less familiar to locals as he has managed to keep a remarkably low profile considering how good this town is at flushing out the ultra rich to come play with us. Pierre M Omidyar is number 18 (and, at 38, decades younger than every other billionaire here), and is the founder of E-Bay. Omidyar and I both live in Henderson; so, I'll keep a look out for him at the grocery store.
