He wrote to Maheu that he sought to “make Las Vegas as trustworthy and respectable as the New York Stock Exchange-so that Nevada gambling will have the kind of reputation that Lloyds of London has, so that Nevada on a note will be like Sterling on silver. “Hughes never intended to buy a hotel-he just wanted a place to sleep,” said Robert Maheu, Hughes’s top aide.
Rather than leave, Hughes bought the hotel for $13.2 million, far more than it was worth. Checkout time came and went, and Hughes, already an eccentric recluse, stayed put despite demands from management to vacate.
