Michael Gaughan

Michael Gaughan founded Coast Casinos in 1979 with the opening of Barbary Coast Hotel and Casino. Coast Casinos merged with Boyd Gaming Corp. in July 2004. In 2006, he purchased the South Coast property from Boyd Gaming, renaming it the South Point. Gaughan was instrumental in bringing the National Finals Rodeo to Las Vegas in 1985 after convincing the rodeo to leave its long-time home of Oklahoma City. He is a member of the National Finals Rodeo Committee, the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame, into which he was inducted in 2007. The South Point has been a mainstay on the PBR/ABBI calendar for more than 10 years and has hosted the Pendleton Whisky Velocity Tour Finals each year since 2016. But Gaughan has been involved with the PBR since its first time in Las Vegas back in 1994. Cody Lambert pointed out that the Gaughans have hosted PBR bulls at Rocking K or the South Point nearly every year for the last 28 years.