Casino Movie Mob Bosses
Casino movie clips: THE MOVIE: miss the HOTTEST NEW TRAILERS: DESCRIPTION:Ace (Ro. Ten years later, Caifano was made the enforcer of Mob operations in Las Vegas after trading his wife, Darlene, to boss Sam Giancana for the job. In 1953, Caifano was ordered to kill Louie Straus after a Mob-owned casino operation at Lake Tahoe, the Tahoe Village, ran into problems (missing money).
Vegas wouldn’t be Vegas without money, mayhem, and murder. Organized crime figured heavily in the town’s transformation from a dusty train stop into the gaming capital of the world. Some Mob bosses like Meyer Lansky stayed in the background while others like Moe Sedway and Moe Dalitz took to the spotlight.
But nobody hit the nation’s frontal lobe as hard as “Bugsy” Siegel when pictures of his murder hit the front pages of newspapers across the country in the summer of ’47.
That was a big year for Las Vegas. Roads into the city had been improved, trains were booked with visitors, and the Mob’s first new casino on the Las Vegas Strip was turning a profit. Six other clubs in town were owned or controlled by organized crime. Still, the new Flamingo was special.
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The Kansas City FBI, suspecting mob involvement at the Tropicana Casino in Las Vegas, set up a broad investigation, known as Operation Strawman, which involved wiretapping phones of reputed mobsters and their associates in Kansas City. From the evidence collected by taps and other eavesdropping in the late 1970s, the FBI discovered a conspiracy. During the 1970s, retired FBI agent and Las Vegas businessman Bill Coulthard. Michael Franzese, a former New York mobster and ex-caporegime of the Colombo crime family, rates classic mafia movie scenes on how accurate they are.
It epitomized what Las Vegas wanted to become, famous. The publicity the new casino generated was substantial.
Casino Movie Mob Bosses
We like to think the tantalizing allure of a city of casinos operated by underworld figures helped make Las Vegas what it is today. But the new casinos would never have been built in the first place if cash wasn’t pumped into the city by the Mob.
Siegel’s crime friends put more than $3 million of their own cash into the Flamingo. Moe Dalitz matched that amount at the Desert Inn. Other men connected to the Mafia also made their mark in Las Vegas.
Behind the men who worked in Vegas, New York, and Chicago bosses had the most influence over early Las Vegas casinos. Lucky Luciano was famous for holding a meeting of crime family bosses in Cuba where “this Bugsy Siegel thing” was discussed. The consensus was that he had to go. He was hit a few months later.
Frank Costello was best known for being shot while holding the daily win records from the Tropicana Casino. He denied any knowledge, but the FBI finally acknowledged that maybe the Mafia was a real thing.
Tony Accardo, the boss in Chicago during the 1940s and 1950s had the Outfit’s slot machines humming all over Chicago. He also demanded that casinos in Las Vegas use the same slot machines manufactured by Mills Novelty and Jennings Company in Chicago. Those early casinos where Chicago held a large or controlling interest included the Flamingo, Riviera, Stardust, and Royal Nevada.
In the 1960s, a nondescript furniture provider, Parvin/Dohrmann, took control of the Fremont, Stardust, and Aladdin as a front. A taste of the Sands, Dunes and Sahara was going to Chicago also.
At the Tropicana, daily winnings were skimmed until the FBI stepped in with “Operation Strawman” in the late 1970s At the time, Nick Civella in Kansas City and Joseph Aiuppa in Chicago were getting monthly cash distributed by Cleveland front man Milton Rockman. Milwaukee Mob boss Frank Balistrieri also got a piece of the action.
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Other Argent Corp. properties found to have been involved in widespread skim operations included the Stardust, Fremont, Hacienda, and Marina. Although the skim was organized by Lefty Rosenthal, he somehow skated and wasn’t indicted. Eventually, nine defendants were sent to jail.