Kirk Kerkorian is one of the most successful Armenian-American businessmen to have ever lived. Although born in Fresno, California, he was awarded honorary Armenian citizenship by the country in which his parents were born.
Kirk Kerkorian’s Early Life
Born in 1917, he grew up within an Armenian community, meaning he spoke only Armenian at home and didn’t learn English until later in his life. After dropping out of education, he began competing in amateur boxing matches, alongside his brother Nish. It was during this time he picked up the nickname “Rifle Right Kerkorian” after winning the Pacific Amateur Welterweight title.
Business Career
In the 1930s and 1940s, Kerkorian sensed an opportunity in aviation so began taking flying lessons in exchange for milking and caring for his teacher’s cattle. Six months later, he had a commercial pilot license and he began working for the British Royal Air Force to deliver American-made planes to European bases, pocketing a fee of $1,000 ($17,850 in 2024 when you account for inflation) per successful delivery.
Using his earnings from these deliveries, Kerkorian bought his own plane in 1944, making his first trip to Las Vegas shortly afterwards. Within a few years, he had his own airline which offered a charter service for gamers to travel in style to Vegas to play at the city’s casinos.
WIth retained earnings from his aviation endeavours, Kerkorian bought land in Las Vegas which was first rented and then sold to the owners of the famous Caesars Palace resort, netting him around $9 million in 1968 (over $70 million today).
Following this, he bought the Metro-Goldwyn-Movie studio and used the brand name to open the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino which was, at the time, the largest hotel in the world.
It was very early on in his time in Vegas that Kerkorian realised that the city’s casinos needed to diversify their offering, a move that appears even more shrewd in the digital age. Today, leading iGaming brands like PokerStars Casino offer many options to their players, including multiple variants of popular table games like roulette that allow them to cater to all types of people, including both casual players and high rollers.
Since players now have the convenience to play their favorite games without having to travel to Nevada, Kerkorian pioneered the idea that casinos should offer a much more rounded experience to encourage more guests.
This led to the Armenian-American’s businesses creating and investing in legendary Las Vegas landmarks like the Mandalay Bay, Bellagio, New York-New York, and The Luxor. Not only did this make him a billionaire and one of the most successful members of his community, it allowed him to leave a legacy that will last long into the future and touch all of the tens of millions that visit Las Vegas and cities like Macao and Singapore for decades to come.
Other Businesses
Following his acquisition of MGM in the mid-20th century, Kerkorian began to save the struggling movie studio from collapse by selling off large quantities of memorabilia from the likes of The Wizard of Oz (1939) and by offloading struggling arms of the company, such as its British division.
Between 1986 and 2005, he sold the company, before reacuqiring some of its assets, and then the entire company, only to go on to resell it again.
Durign this time, Kerkorian began to show an interest in the automotive industry, though this never led to any notable successes. A failed hostile takeover of Chrysler in the 1990s was followed by him acquiring a 9.9% stake of General Motors; he then sold almost all of it ahead of the company’s share price tanking in the economic slowdown of the late 2000s.
Kirk Kerkorian’s Awards and Honours
His success in business earned him a lot of accolades and honours throughout his life and beyond, including being named a National Hero of Armenia back in 2004 and being featured on an Armenian postage stamp in 2017.
