Circus Circus Enterprises, Inc. - Specimen Stock Certificate

Specimen Stock Certificate printed by American Bank Note Company.

Circus Circus hotel and casino company operates seven properties in Nevada. A consistent profit leader within the industry, the company has grown constantly since 1974. Relying on a formula of low costs and high volumes of middle-class customers, Circus Circus has pioneered the concept of the casino as an entertainment theme park for the entire family. Circus Circus began as the brainchild of Jay Sarno, a Las Vegas businessman with reputed ties to organized crime. Sarno had made his name as the operator of a chain of motels and had also developed Caesars Palace, a casino and hotel with a Greco-Roman theme. In 1968 Sarno opened a casino with a circus theme on Las Vegas Boulevard, more commonly known as the Las Vegas Strip. Never one to think small, the promoter installed a circus arena, a carnival midway, a casino, restaurants, and shops under an enormous pink and white-striped tent-like roof. A baby elephant roamed the premises pulling the handles of slot machines and aerialists whirled through the air, their nets hovering just above the gaming tables. On the midway customers threw baseballs at targets and were rewarded for a bull’s-eye by a topless woman springing out of a bed to dance for them. Stunned by the excess of the display, rivals on the Las Vegas Strip declared Circus Circus a combination of Sodom and Disneyland. Sarno had hoped that the extravagant displays of Circus Circus would attract high rollers to his baccarat tables, but the circus theme—with clowns and animals and the children they attracted—was at war with the ambiance of a posh gambling hall. Trapeze artists whizzing overhead were a constant distraction to gamblers and the casino was not the big money-maker that Sarno had envisioned.