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Transcript

-Marcie Gambetta

There are few cities in America as notorious as Las Vegas.

The mob is one of the reasons for the notoriety.

1880-1924

The Mob is organized crime, and organized crime is as old as crime itself. The current, most visible form is seen in gangs. The Mob as it relates to Las Vegas grew out of immigration. Between 1880-1924 immigrants entered the United States through Ellis Island.

The immigrants were mainly composed of Southern and Eastern European (Italians & Slavic Jews) people. These new immigrants faced the same problems most immigrants had.

  • Due to discrimination from non-immigrants, the immigrants were left with low wage jobs.
  • Some of them turned to illegal activities to help supplement their income.

Gambling

Prostitution

"Protection"

Loan Sharking

and between the years of 1920-1933

Bootlegging.

Prohibition - 18th Ammendment is ratified

January 16, 1919

The 18th Ammendment - Prohibition is repealed

December 5, 1933

March 1931

The state of Nevada legalized gambling in March 1931.

The Mob didn’t catch onto the huge moneymaking potential of Las Vegas until after World War II ended.

Las Vegas remained Mob free until the Mobster Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel realized the potential for Las Vegas. The timing could not have been better. Before the formation of Las Vegas, American tourists looking for a great time had to go all the way to Cuba. In Cuba gangsters were welcomed by the corrupt Batista regime, casinos were plentiful, and the profits were huge. Around a decade after the opening of the first casino in Las Vegas, Fidel Castro’s Revolution swept Cuba. So, the people were left with no other alternative for legal gambling than going to Las Vegas.

“We only kill each other.”

Bugsy Siegel was known as one of the most "infamous and feared gangsters of his day". He was handsome and charismatic and was also a driving force behind the development of the Las Vegas Strip. He was one of the founders and leaders of Murder, Incorporated, and became a bootlegger during Prohibition. After Prohibition was repealed in 1933, he turned to gambling. Siegel traveled to Las Vegas, Nevada where he handled and financed some of the original casinos.

“We’re bigger than U.S. Steel.”

Meyer was known as the "Mob's Accountant", and was a major organized crime figure who was instrumental in the development of the "National Crime Syndicate" in the United States. For decades he was thought to be one of the most powerful individuals in the country. In 1952 he actually successfully bribed the Cuban President with $250,000, to step down so Batista could re-assume power.

With Bugsy's imagination and great organizational skills and the money of the Mob, the first gambling resort of Las Vegas opened.

December 26, 1946

The Flamingo opened on December 26, 1946. It was the first of many Mob-financed resorts. Las Vegas proved to be a very profitable and legal business for the Mob. Once a dull desert town, it now became the glitzy Las Vegas "Strip."

June 20, 1947

In June 1947 Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel had only been running the Flamingo for six months when he was killed in a hail of gunfire at his girlfriend’s Beverly Hills, Calif., home. Historians believe Bugsy Siegel may have been killed because he was stealing money from the casino operations. There are photos of his bloodied, bullet-riddled body and they are a stark reminder of what could happen when the mob is crossed.

November 15, 1950

Kefauver brought his committee to Las Vegas

The U.S. Senate Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce held the seventh in a series of 14 nationwide hearings in Las Vegas. More commonly known as the Kefauver Committee hearings, after U.S. Senator Estes Kefauver who headed them, the committee investigated the influence of the mob in the gaming industry as well as levels of corruption in the business. The hearings were held in cities nationwide between 1950 and 1951 and sought to expose organized crime. This two-year investigation heard more than 800 witnesses and identified organized crime as big business operating in major cities throughout the country.

The March 1951 Time magazine cover on Kefauver summarized the committee’s findings: the committee had “turned up a sinister pattern of organized crime in the U.S.” and evidence suggested that such crime is “not limited to any single community of any single state, but occurs all over the country.” The committee concluded that organized crime in the U.S. was “big business,” dominated by two major crime outfits: the Capone Syndicate and the New York Syndicate. The committee also stated that since the repeal of Prohibition laws, the focus of these crime syndicates was on big-time gambling.

Johnny Roseili was an influential mobster for the Chicago Outfit who helped them control Hollywood and the Las Vegas Strip. He was also involved with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) plot to kill Cuban leader Fidel Castro in the early 1960s.

On 12th March, 1961 Roselli was approached and recruited by the CIA. The CIA used him and his contacts to carry out an assassination attempt on Fidel Castro. They were given six poison pills, which they put in his food.

The attempts were unsuccessful and continued until the Cuban Missile Crisis, which began in October 1962 and lasted for 13 days.

The book, The Green Felt Jungle, estimated that the mob had up to $300 million invested in Las Vegas by 1962. The Green Felt Jungle was first published in 1963 and it was the first book to tell the story of Las Vegas's dark side. It discussed mobsters, prostitution and political influence peddling.

June 28, 1974

In 1970, Meyer Lansky fled to Herzliya Pituah, Israel, to escape federal tax evasion charges. Although the Israeli Law of Return allows any Jew to settle in the State of Israel, it excludes those with criminal pasts. Two years after Lansky fled to Israel, Israeli authorities deported him back to the U.S. The U.S. government brought Lansky to trial with the testimony of loan shark Vincent "Fat Vinnie" Teresa, an informant with little or no credibility.

Lansky was acquitted in 1974.

The Las Vegas Mob era of the mid-20th century came to a gradual end in the 1980s with the aging out of the World War II generation and the decline of organized crime elements.

February 14th, 2012

For more information check out this website:

http://www.lasvegassun.com/history/mob-interactive/

Sources:

"History (Official City of Las Vegas Web Site)." History

(Official City of Las Vegas Web Site). City of Las Vegas, n.d. Web. 14 Oct. 2014.

German, Jeff. "From Siegel to Spilotro, Mafia Influenced Gambling,

Regulation in Las Vegas." Las Vegas Review-Journal. Las Vegas Review Journal, 9 Mar. 2014. Web. 15 Oct. 2014.

"Mob Ties - Las Vegas Sun News." Mob Ties - Las Vegas

Sun News. Las Vegas Sun, n.d. Web. 15 Oct. 2014.

"The Mafia." Mafia in Las Vegas -. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Oct. 2014.

"Mob Museum | Mob Museum." Mob Museum. The Mob

Museum, n.d. Web. 13 Oct. 2014.

Green, MIchael. "Las Vegas Mob." Online Nevada Encyclopedia.

N.p., 19 May 2011. Web. 12 Oct. 2014.

"John Roselli." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 12 Oct.

2014. Web. 13 Oct. 2014.

Photo Credits:

Three Immigrants http://www.nps.gov/stli/historyculture/images/Three-Immigrants.jpg

Illegal Gambling Mobsters http://gamingzion.com/images/newsimages/illegal-gambling-mobsters-070814.jpg

Prostitute http://gamingzion.com/images/newsimages/illegal-gambling-mobsters-070814.jpg

Protection http://www.nightingaleatlarge.com/wp-content/uploads/Prohibition.jpg

Moonshining http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/Moonshining_-_Kentucky_-_Revenue_Man_-_Project_Gutenberg_13181.jpg

Early Casino http://sqlasvegas.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/the-early-casinos.jpg

Las Vegas Sign https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/233448249/LasVegasSign.jpg

The Flamingo http://michaellewisart.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/flamingo_mid_50s.jpg

Bugsy Siegel http://cdn2-b.examiner.com/sites/default/files/styles/image_content_width/hash/e4/f8/e4f8b983262e0e0047f834f7b5261142.jpg?itok=IWIzrfkH

Meyer Lansky http://cdn.denofgeek.us/sites/denofgeekus/files/meyer-lansky-1902-1983-in-1949-everett.jpg

Newspaper http://images.rarenewspapers.com/ebayimgs/8.26.2010/image040.jpg

Las Vegas Courthouse http://digital.library.unlv.edu/cgi-bin/getimage.exe?CISOROOT=%2Fsnv&CISOPTR=1124&DMSCALE=37.341299&DMWIDTH=930pxpx&DMHEIGHT=500pxpx&DMX=0&DMY=0&DMROTATE=0

Kafauver Hearings http://sunnycv.com/steve/USPics15/78426.jpg

Time Magazine Cover http://img.timeinc.net/time/magazine/archive/covers/1951/1101510312_400.jpg

Tommy Gun http://img.thesun.co.uk/aidemitlum/archive/01670/SNN1115TOP---_1670796a.jpg

Green Felt Jungle Gym http://www.clarkcountynv.gov/Depts/parks/PublishingImages/events/exhibit-greenfeltjungle-3-23-2012-lrg.jpg

Johnny Roselli http://www.onewal.com/mugs/roselli-johnny-ch.gif

Loan Shark http://mafiatoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/moneywad.jpg

Mob Museum http://themobmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Mob-Museum-Building-Angle1.jpg

Johnny Roselli

The Mob Museum opened February 14th, 2012 in the same building where the Kefauver Hearings were held.

Bugsy Siegel

Meyer Lansky

Police officers and law enforcement agencies were on the payroll of the Mafia Bosses and ignored the gambling operations. However, a major event occurred which forever changed the history of gambling and casinos in the United States.

The Mob in Las Vegas

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