Timeline
“If you think you’ve got the best of it, take dead aim and hold onto your balls.”
—Legendary sports bookie Bob Martin
1989
Tom Breitling meets Tim Poster, surely the only college student carrying his own mobile phone at that time, and instinctively knows Tim is a guy he can trust—a bond forged over an expensive sandwich and Tim’s genuine and immediate offer to cover the check.
1990
A half-year after Steve Wynn erected the erupting volcano at the Mirage, Tim Poster sets up an 800 number and founds Las Vegas Reservation Systems (LVRS), a hotel room rental business built around the merchant model he devised during an entrepreneurial class at USC. Tim starts with contracts allowing him to offer a few rooms at two Las Vegas hotels. “Looking back,” says Tim, “starting the reservation business at that time was like being the guy who paid $24 to the Indians for Manhattan.” LVRS first-year revenues: $800,000.
1991
Tom Breitling, determined to be the next Bob Costas, gets his first television job at KHIZ-TV in Victorville, California, home of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. Because the sports spot is already taken, he starts as weatherman and broadcasts high school sports from the sports anchor seat. LVRS second-year revenues: $1.6 million.
1992
Tim and Tom’s wildly successful partnership begins with a handshake on a frozen lake in Minnesota. LVRS revenues: $2.8 million.
1993
Tom, with a hundred dollars in his wallet, leaves his dreams of being an ESPN sportscaster and drives his Honda Accord to Vegas to join Tim at LVRS. By now, 12,000 additional hotel rooms have come into the Las Vegas market with the opening of the Luxor, Treasure Island, and MGM Grand. Tom and Tim push to broaden LVRS’s allotment of 5 rooms per night per hotel to 25 or 50. LVRS revenues: $3.6 million.
1994
With larger blocks of hotel rooms to offer, Tom and Tim begin creating air-hotel-car rental packages for Vegas vacationers. LVRS revenues: $4.8 million.
1995
Internet web browsers Explorer and Netscape Mosaic become popular as consumers begin to learn how to “surf the web.” LVRS revenues: $6.2 million.
1996
While traditional companies print brochures, Tom conceives one of the earliest web sites featuring images of the exotically themed hotel rooms LVRS is offering—the pirate motif at Treasure Island, pyramid designs at the Luxor, and the medieval décor at Excalibur. The site allows LVRS to respond to the market in an instant, based on demand, and update information immediately. At ages 27 and 28, Tom and Tim are millionaires. LVRS revenues: $8.5 million.
1997
Tom and Tim invest six month’s profit to begin developing Tom’s brainstorm—one of the first automatic online reservation systems—a fast, easy to use, five-click system that allows people to search, compare, and reserve hotel space via the Internet. LVRS sales: $12 million
1998
“Every quarter we put in comes back dressed up as a dollar!” says Tim Poster. With the February 26 launch of their new online reservation system, LVRS grows exponentially. The partners form a new company, Travelscape, adding air-hotel packages and taking their merchant model global. Sales climb 60% to $20 million.
1999
Travelscape takes off, offering rooms in 100 cities and 2,500 hotels. Barry Diller wants to buy Travelscape. He bets that the young entrepreneurs—to save the deal—will take $38 million less than the agreed-upon purchase price and switches his offer at the eleventh hour. Firmly believing a man’s word is his bond, Tim and Tom call Diller’s bluff and refuse. Travelscape continues to surge, selling reservations for 2 million rooms a year. Annual revenue: $100 million.
2000
Tom Breitling and Tim Poster make their first megabuck when they sell Travelscape to Microsoft’s Expedia for $105 million in Expedia stock. Tom donates some stock to a school that Andre Agassi and Perry Rogers are establishing for Las Vegas’ inner city kids, and $1 million to the Nevada Cancer Institute.
2002
Tom takes a seat on Expedia’s board of directors just as Barry Diller buys a 60% share of the company. When the dot-com bubble bursts, Expedia’s stock falls from $34 to $7. Tim serves on the board of Station Casinos.
2003
Expedia’s stock soars to $150 a share by summertime. Partners Tom and Tim are joined by Andre Agassi and Perry Rogers, who also represented Shaquille O’Neal. Mark Burnett, legendary producer of “Survivor” and “The Apprentice,” turns his cameras on Tim and Tom for a new reality show, “The Casino.”
2004
After being grilled by the FBI and Nevada’s Gaming Control Board, at the stroke of midnight on January 23, 2004, Tom and Tim take ownership of The Golden Nugget, including the 61-pound golden nugget that comes with the legendary landmark, the longest continually operating casino in Las Vegas, making them the youngest casino owners ever in the state of Nevada. They return “Vintage Vegas” glamour and style to the city’s down-turning downtown, wrapping the old days into the new with a personal touch. Tony Bennett headlines at the Nugget’s intimate, 425-seat showroom.
Tom, Tim, and the Nugget are on a roll. They are named two of People magazine’s 50 Hottest Bachelors. Tim’s dealing blackjack to the Sopranos and Tom is being called to the stage to perform with the Barenaked Ladies. Their images are 50 feet tall, blown up on billboards for “The Casino” on Fox TV all over town.
2005
Tim and Tom sell The Golden Nugget for $113 million in profit, making their second $100 million before they turn 40.