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Inside Gaming Column: Wynn Back in the Art Market

LAS VEGAS -- What's next? Now that Steve Wynn has sold his Modigliani, art world sources say he's eyeing a van Gogh. The most likely target is "Portrait of Doctor Gachet," the most expensive painting ever sold at auction. It sold for $90 million in 1997 to an unknown buyer some guess was the Queen of England. The other rumored candidates are "Portrait of Patience Escalier" or "Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear and Pipe," both owned by the Niarchos family, heirs of the late Greek shipping tycoon Stavros Niarchos. Wynn, however, said the paintings in Greece are not for sale.

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Word on Wall Street is that Tim Poster and Thomas Breitling, prospective buyers of The Golden Nugget in downtown Las Vegas, are offering salaries as high as $100,000 above the market rate plus signing bonuses to retain top staff. The two, who previously parlayed their Travelscape Web reservation service into tens of millions, are said to be focused on quelling investor concerns about staff instability. One concern would be whether the compensation costs are so high that yields will prove disappointing.

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Massachusetts Senate sources say a casino proposal was dumped specifically because Maine voters killed plans for a $650 million, Las Vegas-style casino there. Politicians were ready to match the Maine ante to keep potential tax revenues from tripping up north. When the proposal died, support for casino development in the Bay State was deflated. No one, however, is saying the issue of casinos is dead forever.

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The new "Sirens of TI" show seems to be going over like a brick. One young woman called it "the worst thing I've ever seen in my life" as attendees at a recent Friday night show stood in stunned silence at the end of the show. Characters deliver lines like: "Every `seaman' who's ever come in my cove calls me Sin." Black Sirens get mad at "Ahoy, who you calling a hoy?" The audience sometimes gasps -- but maybe for all the wrong reasons. ¥ ¥ ¥ The Sands Casino Hotel in Atlantic City is offering something mogul wannabes won't find at any other casino: dinner with a multibillionaire. Executives can buy into the "Million Dollar Deal: Showdown at the Sands" poker tournament for $10,700, which includes having dinner with financier Carl Icahn, the Sands' principal owner. Legend has it that Icahn, who owns the Stratosphere and two Arizona Charlie's properties in Las Vegas, began his investment career with $4,000 in poker winnings in the early 1960s.

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