The Seminoles and Hard Rock International announced a bunch of new executive appointments, but one stood out. The Las Vegas one, obviously. “Vegas” is literally in the name “Vital Vegas.” It’s not Vital Tampa. Nobody wants to see that. Tampa has nothing going on. Tampa’s official motto is “So not Miami.” If Tampa isn’t even Miami, which isn’t nearly as cool as Las Vegas, what makes you think there should be a Vital Tampa and why did you even bring that up?
Anyway, Hard Rock has announced a Senior Vice President and General Manager of Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Las Vegas, currently being built on the Las Vegas Strip.
The new Senior Vice President and General Manager of Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Las Vegas is Justin Wyborn. We met him, he seems like a cool dude. We are already testing his patience by waiting until the third paragraph of this story to mention his name. Dealing with us isn’t always a walk in the park, so patience is in the job description. Wyborn has already endured our mansplaining about challenges facing the casino industry, so he’s already off to a great start, patiencewise.
To quote Jeb Stuart and Steven de Souza, “Welcome to the party, pal!” Those are the screenwriters of “Die Hard.” It’s not a John McClane quote. We hate when people attribute memorable lines to fictional characters. Somebody wrote that. You can read more about the Writers Guild of America’s “Somebody wrote that” image campaign on page 24 of the Writers Guild of America’s 1998 Annual Report (.pdf), although why you would do that, we have no idea. Yes, we created that campaign during our time at the Writers Guild. It’s not always about us, though, so please try and focus.
The Hard Rock announcement provides little information about Wyborn, so we don’t know much about him other than the fact he has an epic name if you’re a fan of “Game of Thrones.”
Wyborn has 25 years of hospitality experience. He joined Hard Rock in 2013, held multiple leadership roles at Hard Rock’s casinos in Florida and was most recently President of Hard Rock Casino Cincinnati.
There actually is a Vital Cincinnati. Its main job is to Tweet 69 jokes and chronicle the ungodly humidity.
We actually don’t know very much about Cincinnati. Speaking of mottos, we actually know the motto of Cincinnati because we once received a postcard from someone traveling there.
After 10 minutes of extensive research, we learned Wyborn started his career at the Savoy in London. He was the director of fine dining at the Star Hotel & Casino in Sydney, Australia and spent 12 years with Nobu.
Wyborn was an executive at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Florida during the construction and opening of its guitar-shaped hotel tower in 2019.
Justin Wyborn will report to Hard Rock’s president, Joe Lupo.
Lupo has been at the helm of the resort since 2022, when it was Mirage.
Joe Lupo has one of the hardest (and weirdest) jobs in the casino industry. He had to deal with the closure of a beloved casino, now he’s overseeing the construction and opening of Hard Rock, and then gets to run a major new hotel-casino set to turn the Las Vegas Strip on its head with a bigass guitar-shaped tower and bigass player database and if you don’t think the big casino companies on The Strip are nervous, you aren’t paying attention.
This is the first Strip casino with tribal ownership. The San Manuel tribe (sorry, Yuhaaviatam of San Manuel Nation) owns Palms (sorry, the San Manuel Gaming & Hospitality Authority owns Palms), but that’s small potatoes compared to Hard Rock Las Vegas.
Targeted to open in late 2027, Hard Rock Las Vegas will feature about 3,600 rooms (including roughly 600 in the guitar tower), a dramatically expanded casino floor of about 175,000 square feet, thousands of slot machines and more than 200 table games, plus new restaurants, nightlife venues, pool complexes and meeting space.
The opening of Hard Rock Las Vegas will be one of the most exciting and buzzworthy events in recent history, and the size and flair of the guitar tower, not to mention its impeccable location, will pivot the eyes of the world from Sphere to Hard Rock.
Hard Rock is likely to be the only new hotel-casino on The Strip for years to come. Justin Wyborn and Joe Lupo will be the dynamic duo responsible for making the tribe’s $4 billion-plus dream a reality in Las Vegas.
No pressure.
