Partner, Mentor, Family: Stephen Crystal and D.W. “Dave” Barrick on 35 Years Together
When D.W. “Dave” Barrick came to Las Vegas for G2E week this September, it was as SCCG Management’s guest of honour and its newly named Chairman Emeritus. On Monday 28 September, during SCCG’s annual Open Office at its Las Vegas Strip headquarters, Dave and Stephen Crystal, Founder and CEO of SCCG Management, sat down together in front of the camera for a conversation that runs to 79 minutes.
It is not a conversation about deals. It is about what nearly 35 years of friendship turns into. The two talk about how a business partnership became family, and about Dave’s role as Stephen’s mentor across the whole of that time.
When SCCG named Dave Chairman Emeritus in September, Stephen described it this way: “A partnership that became something more, a life-long collaboration, a ‘father & son’ kind of relationship that I’ve never taken for granted.” Stephen closed with an invitation to honour Dave at G2E 2026 as “a partner, a mentor, and family.” This conversation is that relationship in their own words.
Watch the full conversation
Running time: 79 minutes.
Who is D.W. “Dave” Barrick
D.W. “Dave” Barrick did not come up through gaming. Dave’s career spans banking, mining, ranching, oil, equine breeding and gaming, and since 1990 Dave has served as Chairman of the Board of Barrick Properties. In gaming, Dave started up Casino Magic, the first land-based dockside hotel casino in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, and built a $500 million riverboat casino and hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, in a joint venture with Station Casinos. As CEO and Chairman of Barrick Gaming Corporation, Dave owned and operated six hotel-casinos in Downtown Las Vegas. Since 2005 Dave has led The Alan Wayne Company, focused on Native American gaming and real estate development.
Together, Dave and Stephen worked on some of the most significant transactions in the modern U.S. casino industry, from Downtown Las Vegas to Kansas City to Oklahoma’s tribal gaming market.
More on D.W. “Dave” Barrick
- D.W. “Dave” Barrick Named Chairman Emeritus of SCCG Management
- Crystal Clear: The Deals Were the Easy Part, Stephen’s column on Dave from Global Gambling News, October 2026
- SCCG Interviews DW Barrick: A Deep Dive into Barrick Gaming’s Legacy (2025)
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