The Decades-Long Romance of Las Vegas and Hawaii

The California Hotel—the Cal, to regulars—has played a central role in the Hawaii-to-Vegas pipeline. Opened in 1975 by Sam Boyd, an Oklahoma-born entrepreneur, it was the first property in what would become Boyd Gaming, one of the largest casino-management corporations in the country. According to William Boyd, Sam’s son, who wrote the foreword for a book about the hotel from 2008, the Cal was named for its original intended audience, gamblers from California. But, a year in, “we were struggling,” William wrote. “One day [my dad] said to me, ‘You know, we’re going to need a niche market here and that’s going to be Hawai‘i.’ ”