The connections between Wynn casino group and the Packers go back to the days when Kerry Packer was a big “whale” who would bet big in Las Vegas.
It was a friendship which, according to Wynn group founder Steve Wynn, which was repaid later when Wynn dealt James Packer into the action in the former Portuguese colony in Macau.
In a sometimes emotional interview in his office in Macau in around 2007, Wynn told me that he wanted to help James get into the Macau casino industry to help the son of the man he had come to like in Las Vegas.
Macau’s gambling industry was once dominated by the legendary Stanley Ho, but in 2007 it was opening up and the Macau Government was letting in new players from overseas.
Steve Wynn got one of the new licenses and opened up his casino in Macau in 2006, a smart new property in downtown Macau built by then Australian owned construction company Leightons.
But by some odd quirk of Macau’s licensing rules, the new licence holders were able to transfer some of their licences to others.
The story according to Wynn, was that he had arranged for James to be dealt into a new casino sub licence in Macau, which was starting to open up as the new gambling capital of Asia.
Packer, who recently ranked at No. 15 on The Australian’s The List, with a fortune of $4.23bn, then used that licence to bring in Ho’s young son Lawrence into his Macau licence, forming a company now known as Melco.
In his interview with me, Wynn was adamant that he was giving a licence to James, to allow him to bring in the partner he wanted, on the terms he wanted, as he felt a sense of obligation to look after his late friend’s son.
Although Packer later moved to sell his interests in the Macau casino business to Ho following the arrest and release of Crown staff in China — a painful story for Packer and his former staff — at a price which was probably well below what it would go for now, James Packer still did well out of his Macau casino interests.
By the time he sold out, Macau was the biggest gambling centre in the world and Melco was a respected player in the city.
Reports are that Wynn and Packer fell out later when Packer decided to come back to Las Vegas a second time. He hired one of Wynn’s right-hand men to work on a project in the city.
Packer’s version of it may differ, and Steve Wynn stepped down last year as chief executive of the company he had founded, after allegations of sexual harassment.
But the casino industry is a small one and the Wynn group has always kept an eye on Crown and its ever changing fortunes. The ties between the Packers and the Wynn group go way back.
Read more: Damon Kitney’s profile of James Packer ‘I am going broke’
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