Murren sorely tested that idea with Cit圜enter, a real estate development cum casino that cost 40% more than comparable buildings in Vegas. It’s a fact about Vegas: While bettors go bust all the time, for a casino there’s almost no financial mistake so big it can’t be fixed by the cash streaming in from the slot machines and poker tables, even during a recession. Now Murren calls that offering “the best bond on the planet.” In January MGM refinanced $900 million in Cit圜enter debt at 75⁄8%. MGM had to pay 113⁄8% interest on a $475 million debt offering in the depths of the crisis. It was bluster alone that got him through 2009, when as a newly minted chief executive he was drawing up bankruptcy plans at the same time he was pleading with lenders to extend the $200 million he needed to finish construction on Cit圜enter. It may sound crazy, but chances are Murren is right. “Not only can it be refinanced, it’s going to be cheaper.” “I can do it in my sleep,” Murren says, wearing the same poker face he used in the fat years before the financial crisis, when he played Bank of America off against JPMorgan and Goldman by telling each one the other was offering him better terms.

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