From that perch, Mr. Maloof was awed by the three slender towers of the Palms Hotel-Casino standing in the foreground of the Strip, all lit up and busily receiving young hipsters and celebrities for another happening weekend.

“It’s a charge to see that,” he recalled. “That was one of the first times I really felt, ‘Wow — I did that.’ And I was proud of it.”

Odds are good that at 43, Mr. Maloof and other Vegas entrepreneurs his age and younger have a lot more success coming. Whereas to most Vegas enthusiasts, names like Steve Wynn, Kirk Kerkorian and Sheldon Adelson are synonymous with the city’s most famous resorts, a new generation is poised to take over as the architects of a city under constant renovation.

“These kids are just so smart,” said Mr. Wynn, 66, the chairman of Wynn Resorts and developer of the Mirage, Bellagio and Wynn Las Vegas resorts. He arrived here himself at 24 after having run his father’s bingo parlors in Maryland. “They will remake this city in their image. Of course, us old guys aren’t done yet. But the new energy is nothing but exciting.”

Those “kids” includes Mr. Maloof, whose family also owns the Sacramento Kings basketball franchise; Frank Fertitta III, 46, and Lorenzo J. Fertitta, 39, who operate Station Casinos, which was founded by their father, as well as the burgeoning Ultimate Fighting Championship league.

There is James J. Murren, 46, president and chief operating officer of MGM Mirage; Sam Nazarian, 32, the Los Angeles hospitality mogul who bought the Sahara Hotel-Resort in 2007; and Anthony A. Marnell III, 33, who is in a joint venture with MGM Mirage to build a $1.8 billion resort eight miles south of the Strip.

And there is an investment group that includes the Vegas native and tennis legend Andre Agassi, 38; his agent, Perry Rogers; and Thomas C. Breitling and Timothy N. Poster, who bought and sold the Golden Nugget earlier this decade for a $100 million profit by their 36th birthdays.

There is, it seems, something about the gambling business that has always drawn youthful leaders. J. Terrence Lanni, the chief executive of MGM Mirage, became chief financial officer of Caesars World, which owned Caesars Palace at the time, at 29. Gary W. Loveman became chief operating officer of Harrah’s Entertainment at 38. As far back as 1946, Bugsy Siegel was just 40 when he built the Flamingo.

“There’s nothing like bringing in young blood,” said Anthony Curtis, publisher of the Las Vegas Advisor newsletter. “Vegas has to reinvent itself again and again, and it has to appeal to new markets. The old-timers aren’t going to really see the changes that are necessary.”

In each case, Mr. Curtis said, important innovations were made in the face of legions of doubters who were proved wrong. Mr. Maloof, for one, emphasized the nightclub and celebrity scene at the Palms, most notably making his mark by allowing his new resort to be the setting for the 2002 season of MTV’s “Real World.”

In 2004, Mr. Breitling, now 38, and Mr. Poster, now 39, followed suit by allowing their lives as owners of the Golden Nugget to be fodder for a reality show on Fox produced by Mark Burnett. Both moves introduced Las Vegas in a new, glamorous way to customers of their generation.

The Fertitta brothers, who last year made Forbes magazine’s billionaire list with net worths of $1.3 billion each, got there by expanding their father’s inkling about the potential for catering to the residents of Las Vegas into a $9 billion, 16-casino enterprise that went private in 2007 in a partnership with Colony Capital.

Station Casinos is poised to expand by virtue of a 110-acre site, named Viva, just west of the Strip where the brothers plan four casino-related developments. The company also has 80 acres sprawling south from their father’s original property, Palace Station, but no plans have yet been devised.

The starting point for many of these men is their family’s fortunes and Las Vegas history. Mr. Maloof’s father was a basketball team owner and beer distributor from Albuquerque who served Las Vegas resorts. Mr. Marnell’s father is the city’s premier general contractor and architect who built the Bellagio and the Wynn and who developed the Rio All-Suites Hotel-Casino. Mr. Rogers’s father is the owner of the NBC affiliate in Las Vegas and six other TV stations; Mr. Poster’s uncle was a top sportsbook oddsmaker.

That history gives rise to a personal and professional collegiality unusual among industry rivals. The Fertitta brothers, for instance, own a 6.7 percent stake in Mr. Maloof’s resort. Mr. Murren recommended the sale of the Golden Nugget to Mr. Breitling’s group and approved the joint venture with Mr. Marnell.

And, as Mr. Breitling describes in his new memoir, “Double or Nothing,” Mr. Rogers, 39, Mr. Poster and Lorenzo Fertitta became friends at the same Las Vegas parochial high school, and Mr. Fertitta befriended Mr. Breitling at the University of Southern California, which led to the Fertittas, Mr. Rogers and Mr. Agassi helping to finance the Golden Nugget purchase.

It is enough for Mr. Murren, one of the few nonnative young moguls, to remark: “There’s certainly more nepotism and more incestuous behavior in the gaming industry than I’ve seen in other industries.” But, he was quick to add, “these guys have taken opportunities that many people squander, and have done more with them than most anyone I know.”

Mr. Murren is clearly of a different breed. Often cited as heir apparent to the 65-year-old Mr. Lanni, Mr. Murren was 36 in 1998 when he became chief financial officer of what was MGM Grand at the time. He takes credit for negotiating buyouts of Mirage Resorts in 2000 and Mandalay Resort Group in 2004. And he also came up with the plan to use 76 acres on the Strip for the CityCenter, an $8 billion development of six high-rises that is the nation’s most expensive privately financed construction project.

“The other guys are cut from a different cloth than I am,” said Mr. Murren, who was raised in Connecticut and earned an art history degree before veering into the investment world after an internship with a bank in Hartford. “I’m the least knowledgeable person you’ll talk to as it relates to gambling. I don’t do it. I get up at 4:30 a.m. I’m asleep by 10 p.m. I’ve never been to the nightclubs. I don’t go barhopping. I don’t live that business.”

He may not need to, given his company’s broad-based clientele, but Mr. Nazarian said that his generation’s advantage is largely in knowing what the 40-and-younger crowd wants from Las Vegas. Mr. Wynn, Mr. Adelson and Mr. Lanni are building top-end resorts for wealthy, older people like themselves.

“If you ask me what is the best toy for a 10-year-old, I cannot tell you, but if you ask a 10-year-old, he’ll tell you very well,” said Mr. Nazarian, the chief executive of the SBE Entertainment Group, which bought the Sahara, the former haunt of the Rat Pack, for a reported $400 million in March 2007. He plans to reinvigorate it by having Philippe Starck redesign it and by adding outposts of the California restaurant and nightclub brands he owns.

Lavish new projects near the Sahara will “price a lot of people out of the market by 2011 or 2012,” he said. “I want to offer an affordable hotel with rates between $150 and $250 that’s unbelievably chic and unbelievably creative.”

While there is clearly a rivalry between the young and old guards, Mr. Breitling is surprised by how paternal the elders are. Mr. Wynn, who once owned the Golden Nugget, dined with Mr. Breitling and Mr. Poster after they bought the place and regaled them with old Vegas tales.