By JACQUELYNN D. POWERS PORTRAIT: FRANCIS & FRANCIS

Stephen Crystal has dabbled in many fields--from politics and hospitality to gaming and technology. To this 42-year-old entrepreneur, the thrill is in creating an enterprise rather than sticking with any one company for too long. To that end, he has been a lawyer, political operative (for Michael Dukakis, Gary Hart and Bill Clinton), hotelier, restaurateur and, most recently, gaming guru. In these endeavors, Crystal has lived in New York, New Hampshire, Kansas City, Missouri, Washington, D.C., and, as of 2000, Las Vegas. In the last eight years, he has put his energy into rejuvenating downtown and Henderson. He is also developing technology that will revolutionize the gaming industry. This is one man who has his eye on the future of Las Vegas.

Crystal's first foray into gaming happened accidentally, in 1992. As a zoning lawyer in Kansas City, he was approached about a local land deal by a visiting businessman named Dave Barrick. "It ended up being the acquisition of a parcel that became the Stations Casino project in Kansas City," Stephen recalls. "It was a $500 million project, which was, at that time, the fourth-largest gaming project in the country outside Las Vegas. I assisted in putting together the acquisition of the land and negotiating a deal with Stations. Then I ended up assisting Stations in the approval and development of the project." Ten years later, Barrick and Crystal became partners in buying six casinos in downtown Las Vegas from legendary operator Jackie Gaughan. The properties included the Plaza, Vegas Club, Gold Spike, Western, Nevada Club and Queen of Hearts. "These were some of the original properties in Las Vegas," Stephen says.

The idea behind purchasing these down-ontheir- luck structures was to...

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