Crime in Las Vegas
Today, Las Vegas is one of the fastest growing cities in the United States and its citizens enjoy a good standard of living, with top-notch schools, a world-class university and many amenities that are never seen by the millions of tourists that continue to flock to this gambling resort in the Nevada desert. What makes the colorful stories about how Las Vegas came to be what it is today, as captured in motion pictures such as "Casino," all the more compelling is the fact that these stories are, by and large, true. In fact, notorious organized crime figures such as Meyer Lansky and Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel were largely responsible for founding what would become modern Las Vegas, but billionaire Howard Hughes helped to transform it into the corporate Disneyland the city has become in the 21st century. This paper provides a review of the relevant literature to determine how these organized crime figures and others seized the opportunity represented by legal gambling to reap billons of dollars in ill-gotten gains before being shut down by federal law enforcement authorities. A summary of the research and important findings are provided in the conclusion. While definition vary, the Omnibus Cri
For instance, "Kerkorian had made his money in crop-dusting and expanded into entertainment. When Howard Hughes' purchased the Desert Inn and several other casinos between 1967 and 1970, it represented a fundamental shift from the "good old days" of organized crime syndication to one in which legitimate businessmen would ultimately assume control of Las Vegas's gambling industry, one in which more or less respectable hotel and resort corporations gradually displaced organized crime (Littlejohn 244). This change in the laws created the opportunity for the investment of enormous sums of corporate capital, and these took place soon after. Other changes were in the works that also compelled organized criminals to think twice about staying in Las Vegas. "In the process, he inaugurated an era in which the capital to fund gaming resorts, which became the dominant industry in Las Vegas, came first from the pockets of organized crime and later from legitimate money the mob could control" (Davis & Rothman 313). Together with support from moderately respectable representatives that served as front men, these representatives of organized crime were largely responsible for Las Vegas's "Green Felt Jungle" notoriety in which casino cheaters were beaten or mutilated by private security forces, minor criminals were shaken down by major ones, police were paid off, and dead bodies of competing gangsters were found buried in the desert sand (Littlejohn 244). For example, the first purchases by major multinational hotel chains took place in 1970 when the Hilton chain bought the Flamingo and the International from Kirk Kerkorian, the self-made billionaire who, like Siegal, had also attempted to shape Las Vegas according to his own desires. According to Davis and Rothman, " In 1967, at the behest of William F. Hughes also had immense assets and cash that he could use to finance any deal he wanted" (Davis & Rothman 323). Indeed, Siegel managed to transform Las Vegas from a wilderness that was virtually free of vices into a world-renowned spectacle of gambling, entertainment, and fun by combining the themes of Monte Carlo, Miami Beach, and Havana with the resort-like nature of the clubs that preceded the Flamingo Casinos on Highway 91 south of Las Vegas on the road to Los Angeles (Davis & Rothman 313). What they learned was simple: Bet on sports and you will be tied to gangsters" (35-6). The landscape lacked the natural resources - water, to name just one - usually considered necessary to sustain life. According to Littlejohn, although the majority of the crimes for which organized criminals and their agents in Las Vegas were eventually convicted (primarily hidden ownership arrangements, and the skimming of casino profits both to avoid paying taxes on them, and to repay illegal mob investors) interested federal investigators with the FBI more than they did local law enforcement authorities (Littlejohn 244). Conclusion The research showed that Las Vegas enjoys a colorful - and violent -- history that is inexorably associated with organized crime.
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