Building Casinos Across Cultures: Las Vegas to Macau with Seth Schorr, CEO of Fifth Street Gaming

Long before Seth Schorr became a casino owner and entrepreneur, Steve Wynn sent him to Macau with a pretty unusual assignment: figure out how the market worked. There were no consultant reports or market studies to rely on. Macau was essentially a black box. So Seth spent months on the ground - staying in the hotels, eating in the restaurants, talking to operators, watching customers, and collecting data himself. That experience helped shape how he approaches business today: **don't assume you understand a market. Go learn it.** Seth went on to co-found Fifth Street Gaming and today serves as Chairman of the Downtown Grand Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. His career has also put him unusually early to several major shifts in gaming—from attempting to build online gaming with Steve Wynn around 2000, to esports, sports betting, and now AI. Not every bet worked. Some were simply too early. We also talk about buying his first casino just as the 2008 financial crisis hit and watching revenues fall 60%, why he thinks young founders may be too quick to skip the experience of working inside established organizations, and why founders should be very careful about whose money they take. And, of course, I had to ask a lifelong Las Vegas casino operator his favorite game. Spoiler: we agree. 🎲