Sam Boyd and his family moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1941 and he began working as a card dealer. He moved up to a pit boss and then to a shift boss and saved enough money to buy a small interest in the Sahara Hotel and Casino. He became general manager and partner at the Mint Hotel and Casino where he developed a number of marketing, gaming, and entertainment innovations.

Artemus W. Ham Jr. was born in 1920 in Las Vegas, Nevada to Artemus W. Ham Sr. and his wife Atla Mereness Ham. He was the oldest of three children born to the couple. Ham Jr. attended the University of Nevada, Reno and Stanford University for his bachelor's degree. He then went on to earn his law degree at Hastings College of Law in San Francisco, California.

Pablo Macias was born in Carlin, Nevada, a small town 20 miles west of Elko, where the local population of Latinos was small. He has lived in Las Vegas since 1990.

He is the youngest of nine children born to Sofia and Tomas Macias, who met and married while living in Utah. Tomas was born in the United States and worked as a railroad laborer. Sofia was Mexican born and found work as a maid to help provide for their family.

Born and raised in the Philippines, Maila Aganon emigrated with her parents in 1992, after she completed her first semester of college. She describes as "typical" her youth as the youngest child (with brothers 5 and 7 years older) of a teacher who worked in another village and a father who worked out of the country. Although independent, she was part of a tightly knit village. The household spoke three languages: her mother's dialect, her father's dialect, and Tagalog.