Gambling is a vital business for the Mafia. They’ve earned lots of money from playing card games and betting on virtually every sport. The Mafia ran numerous illicit and deluxe gambling joints all over the United States. The Mafia Bosses had police officers and other law enforcers on their payroll and thus their gambling maneuvers went down without interruption by state agencies. However, the 1931 legalization of gambling in the state of Nevada transformed the casino and gambling industry in the country. After the legalization of gambling in the state, there was little activity as only a few people cared, including military men from adjacent camps and some local cowboys.
The answer lies in Las Vegas reputation as a gambling capital of the world. The most of the tourists come here to test their fortune in casinos. That income puts Las Vegas in American top 5 of the cities according to the amount of the money spent by tourists. Atlantic City is by far the gaming and gambling capital of the East Coast, with 13 world-class casinos and thousands of high-end games and machines. Plus, you can also make it a great family trip as there are quite a few things to do in Atlantic City with kids. Check Rates of Atlantic City Hotels.
The humble beginnings of a desert town
Positioned in the interior of the expansive Mojave Desert in Nevada, Las Vegas was a dusty town that seemed ages away from its now revered nightlife, casinos that operate round the clock as well as numerous other modern entertainment options. During the early 1940s, the town was essentially made up of a small number of filling stations, some slot machine shops and a few outlets dishing out junk food. Living or working in Las Vegas was not pleasant. The Mafia only caught onto the humongous money mining capability of the town after the end of World War II.
Mafiosi Bugsy Siegel
How the Fidel Castro Revolution impacted on Las Vegas
The famed American crime boss Alphonse Gabriel Al Capone, aka Scarface, aka Big Boy, aka Public Enemy No. 1, had a great interest in Las Vegas, although he wasn’t able to accomplish his agenda of transforming the town into a casino harbor for holidaymakers and gambling enthusiasts. As such, Las Vegas stayed without the Mafia until its potential was realized by
. The timing of the coming of these Mafiosi couldn’t be any better. Prior to the development of Las Vegas by these Mafiosi, American holidaymakers searching for a splendid gaming time had to travel to Cuba. The crooked Batista administration warmly received gangsters in Cuba; there were countless casinos and the earnings were great. About ten years passed after the first Las Vegas casino was opened and Cuba was swept with the Fidel Castro Revolution. Consequently, there was no choice for legitimate gambling other than heading to Las Vegas.
The Flamingo and other resorts
The moneyed Mafia launched The Flamingo, the first gaming resort in Las Vegas on Boxing Day of 1946, courtesy of Siegel’s superb organizational skills and creativity. The opening of several other resorts backed by Mafia followed suit. Gaming in Las Vegas became an exceedingly lucrative and lawful commercial activity for the Mafia. The previously dull dusty desert town was duly transformed into the ritzy Las Vegas Strip.
Before the mid-20th century, the New York City Mafia Families and Al Capone’s Chicago Outfit had launched businesses in Las Vegas. The Outfit operated three main casinos, specifically the Riviera, the Stardust and the Desert Inn. The Outfit opened other casinos in the 1960s including the Golden Nugget, the Fremont, and the Hacienda. Travelers from across the country and the rest of the world flocked Las Vegas to at least have a taste of the city’s unrivaled gaming, vibrant nightlife and world’s best entertainment.
Sharing the spoils
Many Mafia Families were coming up with gambling resorts as the existing businesses started being concerned about the shrinking of profits occasioned by increased competition. The different Mafia families from across the country struck a deal ensuring that each one would receive an intertwined profit share from the other’s resort. It was almost impossible to identify which resort was owned by who. Every Mafia Family received a share of the spoils; mind you it was a colossal share.
The fall of the Mafia
Enter the antisocial and self-centered magnate Howard Hughes in the 1960s, and businesses of Las Vegas Mafia started falling. Hughes rooted for and achieved the legislation of a Nevada law that banned conglomerates from having interests in casinos and resorts. Hughes went forth to purchase over fifteen gambling resorts, expelling Mafia from them. By the end of the 1970s, Hughes suffered huge losses instead of the huge profits he had craved for and thus left the casino business.
The Mafia made a comeback to the Las Vegas casinos, albeit for a short time. In the 1980s, the FBI instigated far-reaching assaults on the Las Vegas welfares owned by the Mafia. Casinos and resorts controlled by Mafia were taken by the FBI and vented to legitimate proprietors. The new landlords transformed the city’s appearance into a family-friendly vacation destination. The majority of the members of the Mafia were arrested and charged, mostly for tax evasion, and faced the prospect of spending the rest of their lives in jail.
Online casino gaming
Las Vegas still carries on with its gambling legacy as it’s the hub of some of the world’s best online casinos that can be played from any corner of the world. Gaming enthusiasts do not need to travel all the way to Las Vegas for gambling; rather, one can gamble and play slot games online and enjoy free spins and other casino bonuses upon registering. It’s only a matter of time before online casino becomes fully legal in all states in the US.
Written By: Ben Cosgrove
Of all the major destination towns in the U.S., Las Vegas might be the most perfectly, unashamedly transparent. No other city in North America, after all has for so long been so identified with one pursuit: namely, the heart-pounding, more-often-than-not-futile hunt for the improbable, near-mythic Big Score.
And the fact that Las Vegas resembles a gaudy neon mirage in the desert? Well, surely no more apt an image could apply to a place where dreams of riches, and occasionally of romance go to die.
But Las Vegas is also a place where dreams, large and small, are just as frequently born. Hotel and casino owners dream of founding (or furthering) their financial empires. Singers, dancers, comedians and magicians dream of performing night after night before rapt crowds. The unemployed from all over the U.S. dream of finding work.
Gambling Capital Crossword
In 1955, 50 years after Las Vegas was founded, LIFE magazine took a rather skeptical look at the boomtown and its prospects for growth in a cover story titled “Gambling Town Pushes Its Luck.” The Loomis Dean pictures in this gallery, meanwhile (many of which were never published) provide some wonderful visual reminders of how raw a place Las Vegas was in the mid-’50s, before the Rat Pack made the city its home away from home and decades before it would begin to reinvent itself as a family-friendly mecca.
Some of the pictures appeared in the June 20, 1955, issue of LIFE, in an article that described the city as “set for its biggest boom,” with some caveats:
In Las Vegas last week the temperature was up to a torrid 110 degrees and the townsfolk who operate the only large gambling center in the country welcomed the seasonable weather. With it they expected the usual bountiful summer crop of tourists trying out their luck and leaving their money behind. The sign of good times seemed everywhere. . . . But with all this a shadow of doubt fell across Las Vegas, a worry that the bloom it was set for has started to wilt.
In the past month, two new top-notch hotels opened. One was the $5 million Dunes, which lugged 120 slot machines in anticipation of the rush. The other was the Moulin Rouge, the first interracial hotel in Las Vegas, which welcomed whites and Negroes to its accommodations and gambling tables. It had Joe Louis as part-owner and host, and a lively, lovely chorus in its floor show.
Like a gambler on a prolonged winning streak, Las Vegas had the feeling its run of luck couldn’t end. For more than a decade, it had parlayed one prosperous year into a more prosperous next year and went into the expansion more in the spirit of hunch than of calculated economics. The opening of the new hotels and of what Las Vegas hoped would be a new era of money-making was opulent and promising. . . . But when the excitement of the opening died down, the town looked at its new places—where customers were scarce and the betting was light—and wondered: Has Vegas pushed its luck too far?
That question, of course, has come up repeatedly over the years, as the desert city has steadily grown from a 100-acre (40 hectare) railroad town in 1905 to a sprawling metropolis today. But no matter the odds, Las Vegas has thus far always seemed to have one more ace in the hole, one more trick up its sleeve to keep the lights on, the casino floors humming and the dreamers, the players and the suckers coming back over and over again.
Liz Ronk edited this gallery for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter @lizabethronk.
Las Vegas, Nevada 1955.
Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Getty Images
Las Vegas, Nevada 1955
Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Getty Images
Las Vegas, 1955. A little-used pool at one of the city’s newest hotels.
Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Getty Images
A billboard for the under-construction El Morocco Hotel, Las Vegas, 1955.
Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Getty Images
Las Vegas, 1955.
Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Getty Images
Las Vegas, 1955.
Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Getty Images
Las Vegas, 1955.
Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Getty Images
A billboard for the under-construction Tropicana, Las Vegas, 1955.
Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Getty Images
![Gambling Capital Of The World Gambling Capital Of The World](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/12/18/article-1097094-02D68FCC000005DC-455_634x600.jpg)
Las Vegas, 1955.
Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Las Vegas, 1955.
Chumba casino complaints. Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Getty Images
A prop slot machine backstage at the Royal Nevada Hotel and Casino.
Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Getty Images
Las Vegas, 1955.
Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Getty Images
Las Vegas, 1955.
Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Getty Images
Idling croupiers (in shirtsleeves) dawdled behind their roulette tables because few customers were placing bets in The Dunes two weeks after opening night.
Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Getty Images
Las Vegas, 1955.
Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Getty Images
The crap tables at the Dunes were tried by Jake Freedman (center), the owner of the rival Sands club. He lost $10,000 before deciding his luck was off that night.
Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Getty Images
Las Vegas, Nevada 1955
Loomis Dean Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Las Vegas casino, 1955.
Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Getty Images
Las Vegas casino, 1955.
Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Getty Images
Las Vegas casino, 1955.
Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Getty Images
Las Vegas casino, 1955.
Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Getty Images
Las Vegas, 1955.
Macau Gambling
Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Getty Images