Robert Baldwin Mgm
Gambling legend and long-time Las Vegas gaming executive Bobby Baldwin will soon be out at MGM, according to an announcement from the company late last week. The 1978 World Series of Poker Main Event champion and four-time bracelet winner has been with the company or one that was later acquired by it for about three decades.
The news of Baldwins departure was not originally announced by MGM Resorts International, but rather by the Las Vegas news and happenings blog, Vital Vegas. On early Thursday morning (like middle of the night Thursday morning), Vital Vegas tweeted, “Hear longtime casino executive Bobby Baldwin (Nugget, Mirage, Bellagio, etc.—all under Steve Wynn) departing MGM Resorts. Baldwin has quite a reputation, including as poker player. Won 1978 World Series of Poker Main Event.”
Later that day, Vital Vegas added some intrigued, tweeting, “Two words you won’t see in our local papers’ glowing stories about Bobby Baldwin and his MGM Resorts departure: Forced out.”
- 4, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — MGM Resorts International (NYSE: MGM) (“MGM Resorts”) today announced that Robert Baldwin, Chief Customer Development Officer of MGM.
- Robert Baldwin has been on the MGM Board of Directors for 15 years and has been the Chief Design and Construction Officer of the Company since August 2007, overseeing what Land and Buildings views as numerous value-destroying capital allocation decisions. The stock of MGM has also performed poorly.
- JLS set to reunite for first time in a decade as they sign new record deal — THEIR hotly anticipated comeback had been almost a decade in the making when JLS finally told me last February they were hitting the road for a greatest hits reunion tour.
- MGM Resorts International is a holding company, which engages in the ownership and operations of casino resorts. The firm's casino resorts offer gaming, hotel, convention, dining, entertainment.
MGM did confirm the news on Thursday, after Vital Vegas broke it, putting out the short press release:
LAS VEGAS, Oct. 4, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — MGM Resorts International (NYSE: MGM) (“MGM Resorts”) today announced that Robert Baldwin, Chief Customer Development Officer of MGM Resorts and CEO and President of CityCenter, will be leaving his positions at both companies later this year. Few have played a more central role in the growth and transformation of the gaming industry than Bobby, and his contributions over more than three decades are immeasurable.
The Southern Highlands luxury home of MGM Resorts International executive Bobby Baldwin is on the market, and it has his fingerprints all over it. Baldwin, president and chief operating officer at.
MGM Resorts thanks Bobby for all he has done for the company and all he has meant to this industry and wishes him the best for the future.
Now, we would never expect the company to expand upon the reasons why Baldwin is leaving and of course it said nothing about him being forced out, but it is certainly curious that a man that has generally been so highly regarded in the industry got such a brief sendoff. I won’t get into the rumors here, as I don’t want to get into anything about someone that I can’t confirm is true, but you can do some quick internet searching to find out.
Adding to the idea, though, that Baldwin’s exit has dubious reasons behind it is the rumor that the famous “Bobby’s Room” high stakes poker area at the Bellagio will soon be renamed. If it is, I think we know that something is up.
When Baldwin won the WSOP Main Event in 1978, he was just 28-years old, at the time the youngest ever to win that tournament. Despite his tournament success, he has not been a frequent tournament player in recent years, sticking to the nosebleed stakes cash games. Baldwin is also renowned as a masterful billiards player and reportedly made bank as a pool hustler back in the day.
Baldwin became a consultant for the Golden Nugget in 1982 and was named president of the casino two years later. In 1987, he took the top position at the Mirage and followed that up as president of the Bellagio in 1998. In 1999, he became CFO of Mirage Resorts, then CEO in 2000. As mentioned in the press release, he is currently Chief Customer Development Officer (CCDO?) of MGM Resorts and CEO and president of CityCenter.
// Gossip, Industry, Misc, NewsAmong the late-week news-dump items comes the interesting and not-insignificant nugget that 1978 WSOP Main Event champion and Poker Hall of Famer Bobby Baldwin, long a high-ranking executive in the MGM Resorts International casino empire, will be departing his roles at that corporation later this year.
News of Baldwin’s coming departure leaked on late Thursday via Vegas-themed social-media gossip site Vital Vegas, and soon enough, MGM Resorts confirmed Baldwin’s upcoming exodus. What was odd to many onlookers, however, was the brevity of the disclosure in the MGM Resorts announcement. It was all of this:
LAS VEGAS, Oct. 4, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — MGM Resorts International (NYSE: MGM) (“MGM Resorts”) today announced that Robert Baldwin, Chief Customer Development Officer of MGM Resorts and CEO and President of CityCenter, will be leaving his positions at both companies later this year. Few have played a more central role in the growth and transformation of the gaming industry than Bobby, and his contributions over more than three decades are immeasurable.
MGM Resorts thanks Bobby for all he has done for the company and all he has meant to this industry and wishes him the best for the future.
Bobby Baldwin Mgm Resorts
Such a brief and generic departure announcement fairly begs for further explanation, and Vital Vegas fanned the flames with a follow-up Tweet:
Two words you won’t see in our local papers’ glowing stories about Bobby Baldwin and his MGM Resorts departure: Forced out.— Vital Vegas (@VitalVegas) October 5, 2018
In a third Tweet regarding Baldwin, Vital Vegas simply responded “Yes” to an online affiliate site’s question and feature as to whether Baldwin was indeed being forced from his prominent roles with the company, and yet another rumor is that the high-stakes “Bobby’s Room” parlor in the rear of the Bellagio’s poker room will quickly be renamed to something else. That room was named after Baldwin, though in recent years Baldwin took his occasional nosebleed-games action over to the Aria.
It’s a curious end for Baldwin’s unusual power run on the corporate side of the Vegas gambling world, which stretched all the way back to 1982, when he was hired by the Golden Nugget as a consultant. (Rumors also suggest he might quickly resurface at DraftKings.) Two years later he was that downtown Las Vegas casino’s president, kicking off a run of over three decades as one of Nevada’s most prominent casino executives. And, unlike most of his industry contemporaries, he did it while still continuing the “professional gambler” thing himself. Baldwin owns four WSOP bracelets, though in later years he’s been more frequently seen in those high-stakes cash games; his rare tourney appearances have been in super high-roller events, a hint to the personal fortune Baldwin has likely amassed over the years.
Yet, there have always been hints and suggestions regarding off-the-narrow Bobby Baldwin behavior. Vital Vegas’s social-media Tweets are littered with accusations that Baldwin has been something of a Steve Wynn-style womanizer, rumors that this site has no information regarding. More salient, perhaps, are ongoing questions about his gambling and related activities. It’s worth noting that when the 2017 flap between Leon Tsoukernik and “Aussie Matt” Kirk went both public and into the Nevada court system, those offhand loans between the two took place at the table, in the Aria’s poker room.
Questions were raised at the time about whether the Aria had committed a gaming violation by allowing such loans to be mde at the table, since they would have necessarily included the shifting of stacks of chips from one player to another… which allegedly happened several times in more than one game. One Vegas casino exec smiled at me that summer and referred to it as a “Bobby Baldwin Special,” a hint that Baldwin’s love of and accommodation for the gamble might have led to some casino rules-bending from time to time.
It’s also just striking to look back at his old association with another larger-than-life Vegas figure, Archie Karas. Karas, who went on the famed (and now suspect) $30 million “The Run” at Las Vegas’s craps tables, also told stories about his toting around many tens of thousands of dollars in the trunk of his car to gamble at pool against a billiards champion who also liked to gamble it up.
Yes, that billiards champ was almost certainly Baldwin, as I’ve been told by a couple of people with direct knowledge, though you won’t find Baldwin mentioned by name in Archie’s tales. What a striking dichotomy the whole thing is, though, decades after the fact. Karas went on to get caught cheating at cards in numerous California and Nevada casinos and is now one of the most famous residents of Nevada’s infamous black book of banned gamblers. And Baldwin left those pool-hustler games to climb to the very top of the Vegas casino world.
Strange stories indeed.
