Longtime Flamingo exec recalled as a mentor

Dziura, who advanced nongaming services, dies

A longtime executive of the Flamingo who paved the way for nongaming amenities becoming profit centers has died, family members said Saturday.

Horst Dziura, who served as president from 1976 to 1999 of what then was the Flamingo Hilton, died after a lengthy illness in Santa Barbara, California. He was 79.

Tributes from around the casino industry poured in for Dziura, who died of a longtime lung disease on

March 17. His family made the death public Saturday.

Dziura was a mentor to several of today’s top gaming executives statewide, including MGM Resorts International interim CEO Bill Hornbuckle, South Point owner Michael Gaughan and Ferenc Szony, CEO and managing partner of Truckee Gaming.

Dziura retired after spending 30 years at the Flamingo Hilton, the last 25 as president. After growing tired of retirement, he went to work with Gaughan for seven years at The Orleans and the South Point.

“We knew we couldn’t pay him what he was worth, but he said he just wanted to get back out of the house,” said Gaughan, who met Dziura while operating Flamingo’s neighbor, the Barbary Coast, now The Cromwell.

“He ran The Orleans for us (Boyd Gaming), and we just got out of the way for him,” he said. about his ‘president’s walk,’ where he and his direct reports would walk the property and he would direct fixes and improvements as they toured.”

“There was a presence about him, and he was kind and he was elegant,” added Jan Jones Blackhurst, a former Caesars executive who now serves on the company’s board of directors. “I always said there was something regal about Horst and the way he carried himself. He had a demeanor and a bearing that was just elegant and lovely.” Dziura also was admired by peers. “He was a pioneer who established order and structure when the industry desperately needed it,” Hornbuckle said.

Horst Dziura