Summer usually quiets Las Vegas. But on a 101-degree day in June, gamblers stream into the downtown California Hotel, the original property of publicly traded Boyd Gaming. Bill Boyd, the company's cofounder and executive chairman, is walking the casino floor, winding up a routine he's been honing for 40 years. He passes the blackjack tables, nodding to his veteran dealers, then ambles past the video-poker machines and the Buffalo Stampede slots. Like all Boyd properties, the California caters to budget-conscious gamblers, mostly locals and middle-class out-of-towners. So it packs in slots and low-limit table games. "The atmosphere here is different," Boyd says. "If I was at the Wynn"-the shard-shaped luxury casino on the Strip created by his former business partner, the billionaire Steve Wynn-"I'd be busy looking around." The California is not where Diana Ross comes to play. Or where you dine on a $100 steak.
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