Phil Ruffin
Phillip Gene “Phil” Ruffin is an American businessman. He owns the Treasure Island Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, in addition to a number of other enterprises including hotels, casinos, greyhound racing tracks, oil production, convenience stores, real estate, and the world’s largest manufacturer of hand trucks.
- 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. Now it’s worth twice as much.
- 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.
