Phil Ruffin
Overview
- Source of Wealth
- Casinos, real estate
- Industry
- Diversified
- Residence
- Las Vegas, Nevada
- Education
- Wichita State University (Drop Out)
- Marital Status
- Married
- Children
- 5
Biography
Phil Ruffin owns the Treasure Island Hotel & Casino plus 50% of the Trump International Las Vegas hotel alongside friend Donald Trump.
Son of a grocer, Ruffin dropped out of college to sell hamburgers with his buddies, then used the profits to buy convenience stores.
From there he expanded into real estate: strip malls, office parks and hotels, including Marriotts in Alabama, California and the Bahamas.
In 1998 he bought the New Frontier Hotel & Casino for $165 million; he sold it for $1.2 billion in 2007 to Israeli billionaire Yitzhak Tshuva.
He bought Treasure Island from MGM in 2009, amid the great recession, for $775 million.
In 2019, Ruffin bought Circus Circus and the Las Vegas Festival Grounds from MGM for $825 million.
About
Donald Trump was the best man at Ruffin's 2008 wedding to his wife Oleksandra, a former Miss Ukraine.
Ruffin once beat out five other billionaires, including investor Ron Burkle, at a Forbes-hosted charity poker game.
His first job was working at a W.T. Grant department store, where he once was tasked with repossessing a monkey a customer didn't pay for.