Number Three With a Bullet
From regulator to racing, Kevin DeSanctis has done it all
by Dave Bontempo
Quick, name some people who worked for Donald Trump, Steve Wynn, Chris Hemmeter and Sol Kerzner.
One rare answer to this "gaming grand slam" is Kevin DeSanctis. Trump's former Plaza kingpin also opened the Mirage for Wynn, Mohegan Sun for Kerzner and he operated in Black Hawk, near Denver, for Hemmeter.
Besides working for high-profile owners and developers, DeSanctis savors Penn National Gaming's rise to prominence. His reign as COO, which began in 2001 for the Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, company (outside of Reading), has encompassed Penn National's transformation from racetrack to major gaming force.
With the acquisition of Argosy and its successful formula of reviving tracks with slot machines, Penn National is the third-largest United States public gaming company. DeSanctis spearheads a sustained effort of 16,000 employees.
That's not bad for someone whose first casino exposure came as a regulator. The Trenton native is a non-conventional day-one Atlantic City official. As a member of the New Jersey State Police, DeSanctis participated in the Division of Gaming Enforcement's licensing of Resorts.
Suddenly, his accounting degree from Pfeiffer College in North Carolina gained significance.
"The folks we were monitoring were business people," DeSanctis says. "I saw the industry as a business and realized that if I'm going to be doing this kind of work, reviewing internal controls, making sure everything is functioning in place, it would be better to do it in private business. There was a much brighter future there."
Indeed there was. DeSanctis flew west with Dennis Gomes, who also began his career as a regulator, spent several years in Nevada and opened the Mirage for Wynn. He returned to Atlantic City and became a major player for Trump in the early '90s.
DeSanctis entered a stagnant marketplace barely a decade old. Atlantic City had not yet been pushed to reinvest.
"At that time, Atlantic City was in the wrong position, from a customer perspective," DeSanctis says. "If they had built rooms sooner and broadened the market, the improved penetration would have been seen in a more meaningful way. The adage was that if you were not a player, you could not get a room. Now, the town is really leveraging on its location and doing what everybody knew it had to do, like bringing more rooms and amenities to the facilities. Back then, nobody was prepared to do that."
The environment, coupled with what DeSanctis considers a low tax rate, prompted a marketing blitz. Without rooms and expansions to separate properties, comps and slogans prevailed. Casinos had to avoid chasing one another's giveaway programs.
"Atlantic City does not permit you to make a lot of mistakes," DeSanctis says. "If you make one, the reaction is almost instant. A classic error, for instance, would be for someone to see the numbers of another property and blindly follow them with respect to how much you can spend (on comps, for instance) to generate that revenue. You had to be careful."
Product branding became especially important for Trump. The organization held positioning midtown with the Plaza, uptown with Taj Mahal and in the Marina district. DeSanctis focused on the Plaza.
"We decided we were going to be a boutique operation," DeSanctis says. "We decided everything we were going to do would focus on a higher-level customer, who was very discriminating.
"Take our limos, for example. We put little extra touches on them. We eliminated the gaudy features; we made it like what a businessperson would buy for himself. We wanted our customers to feel the same experience as if we were sending a car for Donald. He liked the limo so much he asked us to order one for him."
DeSanctis applied police work logic to this multibillion-dollar industry. One gentleman understood concepts, structure, organization and goal-setting.
"You need to do five things, starting with defining the direction of your company," DeSanctis says. "You have to then set clear objectives, so you don't wander without a purpose. You have to measure and monitor your achievements, let people know if they are doing so and then reward them. Whatever business you are in, you must understand structure and people. That's why people coming out of the military make very good managers."
DeSanctis caught the last of Trump's big-time boxing spending sprees, the 1991 Foreman-Holyfield blockbuster. Trump continued showcasing fights and special events like Brazil-Argentina indoor soccer, but the company's image emerged more via Trump's personality and some 3,000 employees. DeSanctis is proud of being able to mobilize them into a single force. The fun, as it turned out for DeSanctis, had just started.
The magic continues at Penn National, a gaming industry "Cinderella Story" DeSanctis helped write. Someday, when a gaming star recalls working for heavy hitters, he'll invoke DeSanctis' name.
Dave Bontempo is an award-winning sports writer and broadcaster who calls boxing matches all over the world. He has covered the Philadelphia Flyers in the playoffs, as well as numerous PGA, LPGA and Seniors Golf Tour events, and co-hosted the Casino Connection television program with Publisher Roger Gros.
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