Las Vegas - In the late 1970s, a baby-faced executive named Terrence Lanni had a tough time persuading banks to lend millions of dollars to build hotels and casinos in this fabled gambling mecca. "It was very difficult to get a loan back then," says Lanni, who was the young chief financial officer of Caesars World at the time. "It's a lot easier now, I can tell you that." Today, the 64-year-old Lanni is CEO of MGM Mirage (MGM), the No. 2 gaming-industry company in the USA, and lenders line up for his business.