MGM Resorts International
CorpDigest
MGM Resorts International
Company History
Founded 1969 in Las Vegas, Nevada
Last reviewed: 2025-07-15 · By Swet Parvadiya
Kirk Kerkorian opened the original MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas in 1969 — at 2,100 rooms, the largest hotel in the world at the time. Kerkorian had bought a controlling stake in the struggling MGM film studio and recognized that the brand carried enough glamour to anchor a Las Vegas property at a scale no one had attempted. The hotel was not just large; it was meant to be overwhelming.
MGM Grand Inc. Was formally established in 1986 as the corporate entity that would develop and manage the gaming and hotel properties. The modern MGM Grand Las Vegas, which replaced the original property, opened in 1993 with 5,000 rooms and was again the world's largest hotel at opening. By 1996, the company had acquired Mirage Resorts — Steve Wynn's flagship properties including The Mirage and Treasure Island — in a $4.4 billion transaction that established MGM as the dominant operator on the Las Vegas Strip.
The 2005 acquisition of Mandalay Resort Group added another $7.9 billion in Strip and regional properties, bringing the Mandalay Bay, Luxor, Excalibur, and Monte Carlo properties under the MGM umbrella. The 2015 spin-off of MGM Growth Properties created the REIT structure that would eventually be absorbed into the VICI Properties sale-leaseback transaction of 2022.
The transition from real estate owner to real estate tenant — completed through the VICI transaction — represents the most significant structural change in MGM's corporate history since Kerkorian's original acquisitions. The $17.2 billion received from VICI funded debt reduction and positioned MGM as a pure-play gaming and hospitality operator.
Kirk Kerkorian, born in 1917, was a visionary financier and aviator who recognized the immense potential of the Las Vegas gaming industry in the post-war era. In 1969, he opened the original MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, which was the largest hotel in the world at the time, setting a new standard for scale and luxury. Kerkorian’s aggressive acquisition strategy throughout the 1970s and 1980s culminated in the 1986 consolidation of his gaming assets into MGM Grand Inc. His most transformative move came in 1996 when he orchestrated the $1.3 billion acquisition of Mirage Resorts, bringing the legendary Bellagio into the portfolio and creating MGM Mirage. Kerkorian’s relentless focus on scale, operational efficiency, and strategic consolidation established the blueprint for the modern, mega-resort gaming conglomerate, leaving a legacy that defines the Las Vegas Strip to this day.
Kirk Kerkorian opens the original MGM Grand Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip, establishing the largest hotel in the world and setting a new standard for scale and luxury in the gaming industry.
Kerkorian consolidates his various gaming and hospitality assets into a single, publicly traded entity named MGM Grand Inc., marking the formal birth of the modern corporate structure.
MGM Grand Inc. orchestrates a landmark $1.3 billion acquisition of Mirage Resorts, eliminating its primary competitor and bringing the legendary Bellagio and Golden Nugget into the portfolio, creating MGM Mirage.
MGM Mirage acquires Mandalay Resort Group for $8.5 billion, adding iconic properties like Mandalay Bay, Luxor, and Excalibur to the portfolio and solidifying its dominance on the Las Vegas Strip.
The company spins off its real estate assets into MGM Growth Properties (MGP), a real estate investment trust (REIT), unlocking billions in trapped capital and initiating the pivot toward an asset-light model.
MGM Resorts completes the $17.2 billion sale of MGP to VICI Properties and leases back the properties under a 15-year triple-net lease, permanently transforming the company into an ultra-asset-light operator.
The company suffers a massive cyberattack by the BlackCat/ALPHAF ransomware group, temporarily crippling slot machines and hotel systems across the Las Vegas Strip and resulting in a $100 million negative impact on Q3 earnings.
MGM Resorts acquires Entain's 50% joint venture stake in BetMGM for $1.5 billion, granting 100% control of the digital technology stack and international expansion rights, fundamentally altering its digital growth trajectory.
MGM Grand Inc. acquired Mirage Resorts to eliminate its primary competitor on the Las Vegas Strip and bring the legendary Bellagio and Golden Nugget into the portfolio, creating MGM Mirage.
MGM Mirage acquired Mandalay Resort Group to add iconic properties like Mandalay Bay, Luxor, and Excalibur to the portfolio, solidifying its dominance on the Las Vegas Strip and capturing the mass-market demographic.
MGM Resorts acquired Entain's 50% joint venture stake in BetMGM to gain 100% control of the digital technology stack and international expansion rights, eliminating complex revenue-sharing disputes.
Kirk Kerkorian founded the predecessor entity of MGM Resorts International in 1969, having accumulated the capital through successive real estate transactions and airline sales — notably his sale of Trans International Airlines and Western Air Lines stakes. Kerkorian's founding act was constructing the original International Hotel (later renamed the Las Vegas Hilton) and then the original MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, which opened in 1973 as the world's largest hotel at the time with 2,100 rooms. His approach to Las Vegas was different from the casino operators who had built the Strip in the 1950s and 1960s: Kerkorian believed that size itself was a competitive advantage in resort hospitality, that guests would travel specifically to experience the grandeur of the world's largest hotel. This insight — that scale and spectacle drive destination travel — became the organizing principle of Las Vegas's transformation from a gambling town into a global entertainment and convention destination. Kerkorian's holdings evolved through complex corporate restructurings: the original MGM Grand Hotel and Casino was sold, the MGM name was licensed, and Kerkorian eventually formed MGM Grand Inc. in 1986 as the vehicle for his Las Vegas casino hotel ambitions. He opened the second MGM Grand Las Vegas in 1993 — again the world's largest hotel at 5,005 rooms — establishing the template of the mega-resort that would define Las Vegas for the next three decades.
MGM Grand's acquisition of Mirage Resorts International in 2000 (not 1996 — the $1.3 billion figure cited refers to earlier transactions; the Mirage acquisition was completed in 2000 for approximately $6.4 billion) added some of the most iconic properties on the Las Vegas Strip to MGM's portfolio. The Bellagio — Mirage's signature creation, built by founder Steve Wynn and featuring the famous fountains, luxury positioning, and the concept of the integrated resort as a world-class art and entertainment destination — was the crown jewel. The acquisition also added the Mirage (the volcano property that had revolutionized Las Vegas in 1989), Monte Carlo, Beau Rivage in Biloxi, and the Golden Nugget properties in Las Vegas and elsewhere. The strategic significance was profound: MGM acquired Steve Wynn's creative vision along with his properties, absorbing the blueprints for elevated resort experiences into a portfolio that had previously been anchored by the mass-market MGM Grand model. The Bellagio in particular became MGM's most profitable individual property for years, establishing the premium luxury tier of Las Vegas Strip properties that commands dramatically higher room rates and casino win per visitor than mass-market properties. The acquisition established MGM as the clear market leader on the Las Vegas Strip by number of rooms and revenue, a position it has maintained through subsequent consolidation.
MGM Mirage's acquisition of Mandalay Resort Group in 2005 for approximately $8.5 billion added seven major Las Vegas Strip properties and several other gaming assets. The most significant properties acquired were Mandalay Bay, Luxor, and Excalibur — three of the largest hotels on the Strip — along with the Monte Carlo (already in the portfolio from the Mirage deal), Circus Circus, and others. Mandalay Bay's convention center — one of the largest in Las Vegas — was strategically valuable for competing with the Las Vegas Convention Center for large trade shows and conventions, which generate high room occupancy at premium rates. Luxor's pyramid-shaped design and distinctive brand made it one of the most recognizable hotels in Las Vegas. Excalibur served the value-oriented family market. The acquisition gave MGM Mirage control of approximately half of all Las Vegas Strip hotel rooms, creating a market dominance that made it effectively impossible for convention groups, large corporate events, or entertainment touring productions to avoid dealing with MGM Mirage. This market concentration attracted antitrust scrutiny — MGM was required to divest certain assets to gain regulatory approval — but the outcome still left the company in an overwhelmingly dominant position on the Strip. The combined portfolio created operational synergies in marketing, back-of-house services, and cross-property customer loyalty through the M life rewards program.
In 2016, MGM Resorts International spun off MGM Growth Properties (MGP) as a publicly traded real estate investment trust, separating the real estate ownership of its major casino properties from the operating business. The strategic logic was fundamental to capital efficiency: REIT structures allow real estate to be owned by tax-advantaged entities that can access lower-cost capital than operating companies, while the gaming operator (MGM) focuses on the higher-return, lower-capital-intensity operating business. MGM sold its real estate into MGP and leased it back through long-term triple-net leases, retaining operational control while monetizing the real estate value. The arrangement gave MGM access to a large capital infusion (the proceeds of selling the real estate to MGP) while MGM investors who wanted pure real estate exposure could invest in MGP separately. The transformation to a leaner operating model reduced MGM's reported assets significantly and changed its financial metrics — higher lease obligations but lower debt, and a business more directly measurable on operating performance rather than asset appreciation. In 2022, VICI Properties acquired MGP for approximately $17.2 billion, completing the asset-light transition. MGM's current real estate is owned by VICI, with MGM as the operating tenant. This structure — operating without owning the underlying real estate — defines the modern MGM business model.
In September 2023, MGM Resorts suffered one of the most damaging cyberattacks ever experienced by a hospitality company. The attack — attributed to the Scattered Spider hacking group, with alleged connections to the ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware operation — began through a social engineering technique: attackers impersonated an employee to the company's IT help desk and convinced the support staff to reset access credentials. Once inside MGM's systems, the attackers deployed ransomware that disrupted slot machines, hotel key card systems, reservation systems, ATMs, and digital check-in capabilities across MGM's Las Vegas properties for approximately 10 days. Guests were unable to access rooms, slot machines were dark, and the normally seamless digital experience of a modern resort was replaced by manual workarounds. MGM's CEO Bill Hornbuckle confirmed the attack cost the company approximately $100 million in lost business impact, plus cybersecurity remediation costs. The attackers reportedly demanded a ransom, which MGM publicly declined to pay (in contrast to Caesars Entertainment, which reportedly paid approximately $15 million to attackers who had used a similar technique shortly before the MGM attack). The episode elevated cybersecurity to a board-level priority across the gaming and hospitality industry and demonstrated that social engineering — exploiting human vulnerabilities rather than technical system flaws — poses risks that technical defenses alone cannot prevent.