Audiobook6 hours
The Battle For Las Vegas
Written by Dennis N. Griffin
Narrated by Michael Taylor
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
About this audiobook
In the 1970s and thru the mid-1980s, the Chicago Outfit was the dominant organized crime family in Las Vegas, with business interests in several casinos. During those years the Outfit and its colleagues in Kansas City, Milwaukee, and Cleveland were using Sin City as a cash cow. Commonly referred to as the “skim,” unreported revenue from Outfit-controlled casinos was making its way out of Vegas by the bag full and ending up in the coffers of the crime bosses in those four locations. The skim involved large amounts of money. The operation had to be properly set up and well managed to ensure a smooth cash flow. To accomplish that goal, the gangsters brought in a front man with no criminal record to purchase several casinos. Allen R. Glick, doing business as the Argent Corporation (Allen R. Glick Enterprises) purchased the Stardust, Fremont, Hacienda, and Marina. They next installed Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal as their inside man, and the real boss of the casino operations. Rosenthal was a Chicago native and considered to be a genius when it came to odds-making and sports betting. Under Lefty’s supervision the casino count rooms were accessible to mob.
More audiobooks from Dennis N. Griffin
Cullotta Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Vegas Vixen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to The Battle For Las Vegas
Related audiobooks
Mob Cops: The Shocking Rise and Fall of New York's "Mafia Cops" Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mob: Stories of Death and Betrayal From Organized Crime Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Chicago Outfit and the North Side Gang: The History and Legacy of Chicago’s Most Notorious Rival Mobs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gangland: How the FBI Broke the Mob Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Double Cross: The Explosive Inside Story of the Mobster Who Controlled America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nothing But Money: How the Mob Infiltrated Wall Street Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gangland New York: The Places and Faces of Mob History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Murder, Inc.: The Mafia's Hit Men in New York City Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gangsters and Organized Crime in Buffalo: History, Hits and Headquarters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTop Hoodlum: Frank Costello, Prime Minister of the Mafia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sinatra Club: My Life Inside the New York Mafia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Inside the Montreal Mafia: The Confessions of Andrew Scoppa Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bugs Moran: The Notorious Life and Legacy of the Chicago Gangster Who Became Al Capone’s Biggest Rival Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Chicago Outfit: The History and Legacy of the Organized Crime Syndicate Led by Al Capone Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Mafia Spies: The Inside Story of the CIA, Gangsters, JFK, and Castro Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blood and Honor: Inside the Scarfo Mob - The Mafia's Most Violent Family Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Frank Sinatra and the Mafia Murders Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Boys in Chicago Heights: The Forgotten Crew of the Chicago Outfit Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The President Street Boys: Growing Up Mafia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Family Secrets: The Case That Crippled the Chicago Mob Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Year of Dangerous Days: Riots, Refugees, and Cocaine in Miami 1980 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mickey Cohen: The Life and Crimes of L.A.'s Notorious Mobster Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5American Mafia: A History of Its Rise to Power Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Detroit True Crime Chronicles: Tales of Murder & Mayhem in the Motor City Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Cigar: Carmine Galante, Mafia Terror Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Deal with the Devil: The FBI's Secret Thirty-Year Relationship with a Mafia Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Life We Chose: William “Big Billy” D’Elia and the Last Secrets of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Family Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hitmen: The Mafia, Drugs, and the East Harlem Purple Gang Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
United States History For You
Killing the Guys Who Killed the Guy Who Killed Lincoln: A Nutty Story About Edwin Booth and Boston Corbett Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the Witches: The Horror of Salem, Massachusetts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5John Adams Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The House of Hidden Meanings: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dragonfire: Four Days That (Almost) Changed America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Land of Delusion: Out on the edge with the crackpots and conspiracy-mongers remaking our shared reality Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51776 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Charlie Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government's Search for Alien Life Here—and Out There Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: 2nd Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of September 11, 2001 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Untold History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation’s Largest Home Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Valiant Women: The Extraordinary American Servicewomen Who Helped Win World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Battle For Las Vegas
Rating: 4.027777744444444 out of 5 stars
4/5
54 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Decent overview of the Mafias hold on 1970s Las Vegas. It covers a lot of the events being the Scorcese film Casino. The rise and fall of various mob figures, the book also features the cops that bought them down.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5From approximately 1970 to the mid 1980's the Chicago Mob dominated organized crime on the :as Vegas strip. Tony Spilotro, while not the real head of the organization in Vegas, he acted like it and became known as the "King of the Strip." Federal & local law enforcement wanted to clean up the the city and remove the Mob from having anything to do with casinos and gambling. Eventually, while they could never put Spilotro away, his high profile and notoriety made the Chicago bosses nervous and they had him killedThe author tells the story from the viewpoint of the FBI agents and local detectives most of whom he interviewed. He also relied on Las Vegas newspaper files and the memories of TV and newspaper reporters who lived through the period. He even interviewed some of the mobsters plus the son of Tony Spilotro who gave a completely different picture of his father from the one everyone else felt to be true. A very entertaining volume especially when one reads it while visiting Vegas as I did.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Really enjoyed learning about the history of Las Vegas. The mob killings were kinda tough to stomach and got rather confusing, but overall the author did a good job sorting it out. I still don't understand all the mob relations but this book is worth reading for the early to mid history of Vegas. Excellent narrator
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A combination Goodfellas and Casino, this book also adds in the law enforcement part of the story. Interesting, but hard to believe it could be true. However, you need only know that that scumbag Oscar Goodman managed to be Las Vegas's "happiest mayor in the world" indefinitely, using family members a proxies, to realize the sleaze was real and continues.