Gary Edward Thompson

Gary Edward Thompson passed away in Las Vegas, Nevada on

Sunday, April 14th after a long battle with cancer. Gary was born on December 4, 1945 in Danbury, CT, the eldest of six children, to Jack and Lorna Thompson of Danbury. He spent his childhood in Danbury, graduating from the prestigious New York Military Academy and attended Lafayette College in Easton, PA before joining the Air Force. Between 1965 and 1968 he served in Germany and Pakistan with an Air Force unit that monitored Soviet and Chinese radio transmissions.

Gary’s younger brother, Robert, was killed in the Vietnam War in 1970. Upon Gary’s return home to Danbury, he began working at the Danbury News Times as a reporter. After several years with the paper he went to New York City and worked for the the Wall Street Journal as a reporter and was then employed by Corporate Annual Reports. In the late 1970’s, Gary moved to Las Vegas and became a reporter for the Las Vegas Sun, and he was eventually promoted to Managing Editor of the Sun. He was known for writing in depth investigative stories. One of those stories was a comprehensive series on the multi-billion dollars Lost Tiger’s Treasure gold of the Philippines. It took Gary and another Sun reporter more than a year to research and resulted in Gary traveling throughout the United States, Australia, the Philippines and Europe. Over the years Gary won several Nevada Press Association’s awards including story of the year and he was nominated for four Pulitzer Prize awards.

After his newspaper career, he was employed as a publicist for Harrah’s Entertainment. He worked his way to the pinnacle of the casino industry, becoming the spokesperson for Caesars Entertainment, the world’s largest gambling enterprise. While he was there, he worked as an executive for the World Series of Poker from 2004 to 2008 during the critical transition between the past and present when the WSOP grew from a small back room game to the internationally televised event it is today.

Gary was diagnosed with cancer in 2001 and for more than a dozen years waged a courageous battle against the disease which eventually spread to his bones. He never let the disease get in the way of his enjoying his favorite past time which was golf. He played right up to the month prior to his passing never giving in to the pain.

Gary was predeceased by his first wife, Sandy Thompson, in 2002. He is survived by his second wife, Gina Thompson, his daughter Kelly Thompson, a stepson, Weston Schneider and a step daughter Kayla Schneider all of Las Vegas. He is also survived by four sisters, Diane Manzi of Brookfield, CT, Linda Pickwick of Newtown, CT, Kathy Thompson of Albuquerque, NM, and Terry Thompson of Danbury, CT and their respective families.