The merits of the application, not the applicant, are to be taken to account by the Land Board in deciding CDUAs. But to anyone trying to understand the Engelstad case, personality may be of more than passing interest.
According to an article in People magazine in 1988, Ralph Engelstad had a 3,000-square-foot “war room” in his Imperial Palace hotel in Las Vegas, filled with Nazi memorabilia – “swastikas and Nazi daggers, and military cars used by Mussolini and Hitler and his Third Reich henchmen Himmler and Goering.” In 1986 and 1988, People reported, Engelstad pressed employees into attending “Hitler birthday parties” there (Engelstad described them as “theme parties to boost employee morale”). Engelstad reportedly dismantled the war room and apologized for the parties, “chalking them up to bad taste.” But he denied ever ordering the “Hitler Was Right” bumper stickers that were seen at his hotel.
Reports of the parties as well as a lawsuit from guests who had been robbed prompted an investigation of Engelstad by the Nevada Gaming Control Board. According to a column by Jeff German in the Las Vegas Sun on December 9, 1988, “Engelstad has unlimited resources, not to mention an endless moneypit, to fight the gaming controllers every step of the way.”
Engelstad later settled accounts with the Gaming Control Board upon payment of a $1.5 million fine, according to German, and was allowed to keep his gaming license.
Volume 1, Number 3 September 1990