# Howard Hughes' Business Dealings Re: Las Vegas **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 15, 2010, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/howard-hughes-business-dealings-re-las-vegas/532596 "2010-03-15T23:00:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2010, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/howard-hughes-business-dealings-re-las-vegas/532596/1 "2010-03-15T23:00:13Z")
I was reading about the late Howard Hughes rather strange business dealings. He was forced to sell his airline (TWA), by the Federal Government-I am not sure why. He then took his tremedous wealth, and started buying up hotels in Las Vegas. My question: did Nevada law then prohibit any one person from owning more tan a certain number of casino licenses? Anyway, did Hughes actively manage his Las Vegas empire? Or was this largely in the hands of underlings. Does the Hughes Foundation still own any properties in Las Vegas? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2010, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/howard-hughes-business-dealings-re-las-vegas/532596/2 "2010-03-16T01:24:27Z")
Hughes was quite the recluse while living late in his life in Vegas and probably increasingly mentally ill. He founded HHMI the Howard Hughes Medical Institute as a charitable institute to deal with most of his financial matters and worked through that organization for the most part. This was mostly a tax dodge when initially set up. Since it was set up it has funded long term medical research projects as its charitable purpose and continues to do so, only now that it is not longer a tax dodge after Hughes death, it does a whole hell of a lot of that stuff in addition to PBS sponsorship. ---
**Author:** ![Neptunian\_Slug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce7236/32.png) [@Neptunian\_Slug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neptunian_Slug)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2010, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/howard-hughes-business-dealings-re-las-vegas/532596/3 "2010-03-16T01:45:31Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > I was reading about the late Howard Hughes rather strange business dealings. He was forced to sell his airline (TWA), by the Federal Government-I am not sure why. I not sure about this. In [his Obit](http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=d-0jAAAAIBAJ&sjid=vlYEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7008,2219753&dq=) one source says that the bank forced him to give up control in order to get some loans to buy jets for the airline. There was a lot of back and forth between Hughes and the board about acquiring jets. Hughes pissed around so long that TWA started losing some market share. That led to a separate lawsuit by the airline that Hughes initially lost with an enormous judgment of $100+ million. The lawsuit allegeded the conflict of interest with Toolco and TWA. Eventually the Supreme Court vacated the judgment against Hughes. > [@ralph124c](#): > > He then took his tremedous wealth, and started buying up hotels in Las Vegas. My question: did Nevada law then prohibit any one person from owning more tan a certain number of casino licenses? They may have at some time in the past, but not at that point. Sam Boyd owned multiple casinos and I believe that Jackie Gaughan did as well. The state was pretty accomodating of Hughes anyway since he seemed like he was going to clean the mob out of the casinos. > [@ralph124c](#): > > Anyway, did Hughes actively manage his Las Vegas empire? Or was this largely in the hands of underlings. Hughes was going pretty wacky by then and had a whole bunch of advisors, mostly a group of Mormons. > [@ralph124c](#): > > Does the Hughes Foundation still own any properties in Las Vegas? The Howard Hughes Corp was sold to the Rouse Company which later sold to General Growth Properties. That purchase of Rouse (or the debt used to purchase Rouse) was one of the things that helped lead GGP into bankruptcy. The company is likely going to be sold to another big mall operator, Simon or Brookfield. Incidentally the Hughes family hasn’t gone away. The heirs were involved in [some lawsuits](http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/jul/17/fight-summerlins-fringe/)over the Summerlin development that Hughes Corp. started.