How did Las Vegas change from a mob-influenced gambling town into a casino empire dominated by corporations?
Retired Kansas City Intelligence Detective Gary Jenkins welcomes Nelson Conway Jr., author of *Vegas Incorporated*, to explore that transformation through casino history and his family’s experiences.
Conway’s father was a Las Vegas CPA whose firm worked with legendary properties, including the Flamingo, Sands, Golden Nugget, and Binion’s Horseshoe. Nelson explains his father’s role in taking the Showboat public in 1969 and why he believes that transaction helped open the door to corporate investment.
Gary and Nelson discuss Benny Binion’s larger-than-life personality, high-stakes gambling at the Horseshoe, and Lefty Rosenthal’s battles with Nevada gaming regulators. Gary adds his perspective on casino skimming, Teamsters pension fund financing, and the Kansas City mob’s connection to the Tropicana.
They also recall the personal service that defined old Vegas, where returning guests were greeted by name and casino employees remembered their favorite drinks and games. Finally, Nelson shares a memorable family story: his father’s face-to-face encounter with Bugsy Siegel at the Flamingo’s 1946 opening. An inside look at the businessmen, gangsters, and corporate money that helped reshape Las Vegas.
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Transcript
Gary Jenkins: Okay. And is that, uh- Nelson’s great
uh, ta- talk a little bit about yourself, and I’ll a- I’ll s- stir you in there a little bit to ask some questions and- Sure … and then we’ll get into, uh, you know, how you [00:04:00] did, how you got started on the book and, you know, your personal search to, to understand about your father and that kind of stuff. And, and then start telling some stories.
You know, what, uh, uh, you know, like the race wires i- in the casinos and, uh, uh, the mob influence from Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel and, uh, um, uh… Kind of interesting thing is the, the c- the numbers from the, uh, Tropicana in Frank Costello’s pocket. I, I think there was something about that. Oh, yeah. And Benny Binion.
I tell you another thing is nobody’s really done much on Benny Binion, and I never have. I keep thinking I should do a whole show on Benny Binion and just go research on him. He’s a real
Nelson Conway: character. He is a character. He’s
Gary Jenkins: an amazing character.
Nelson Conway: Yeah.
Gary Jenkins: So it, it wouldn’t hurt to take up a lot of time in this talking about what you remember about, uh, your research revealed about Benny Binion and the connection to your father.
Okay. And I just think it’s so interesting that change from Lefty and, you know, the Chicago Outfit move on into, you know, current Las Vegas. And a lot of [00:05:00] people are interested- Yes … in that, ’cause I don’t know, I… How many times have you had people say, “You know, boy, I really miss the old Las Vegas when the mob ran it,” you know?
“It was so much better then.” All the time.
Nelson Conway: All the time.
Gary Jenkins: All
Nelson Conway: the
Gary Jenkins: time.
Nelson Conway: It’s, it’s an interesting, it’s an interesting… Like, you pick the flap up underneath a, a tarp. Um- Yeah … ’cause we always hear the horrible stuff. I mean, the, the gangster stuff. The-
Gary Jenkins: Yeah …
Nelson Conway: um, the killings, the en- en- enforcement, the bombings. Um, but if you…
But there was another side to them. They created an experience for, uh, the tourists and, uh, even, you know, all those, that, um… Oh, we’ll talk about it. We’ll talk
Gary Jenkins: about it. Yeah. And, and people are right. It was truly a more personal experience.
Nelson Conway: Much more.
Gary Jenkins: Because these guys- Yeah … like Lefty Rosenthal, he was in that casino.
He’s like a good small restaurant where the, a restaurant owner comes by your table and say, “How is everything?” Exactly. “Everything okay?” The [00:06:00] casinos with a guy like Lefty Rosenthal and Benny Binion and some of these other guys out there, these characters, you know, they were out on the floor. They would…
You know, they were seeing how many blueberries were in the muffins, and they may not have been very nice people, but-
Nelson Conway: Absolutely true … but- Yeah, yeah … they
Gary Jenkins: were, they created- Yeah … that experience
Nelson Conway: Well, um, if, I’m just gonna talk about that a little bit since you, since you kind of poked that a little bit. Um, I remember being back there and, uh, when I was younger, um, fully mobbed up, uh, casinos.
But what would happen is if you were a mom and pop Joe Smith and you would go to, say, the Dunes, and you’d be there, like, say, you go in the summertime about the same time of year. You maybe do it two or three times. Um, um, these resorts would have this organization where they’d get your name down. They’d know when to expect you.
Uh, they would remember what you drank. They would remember what your [00:07:00] games were. And so when these people would, like, make a reservation at the Dunes for another year, they’d step in- into the casino and the pit boss would say, “Well, hello Mr. and Mrs. Smith. It’s so nice to see you again. Uh, we think… Y- you like 21, don’t you?”
Yeah. “Oh, well, come on over here. I’m gonna set you up in this table.” Yeah. “And you drink… Uh, you like, um, you like bourbon and Seven, don’t you? Yeah, we’re gonna get you a drink.” This was actually happening. These guys took that business very seriously and, as you said, very personally. Yeah. This kind of feel, um, permeated in one way or another the entire floor experience.
When you’ve got your… You, like you say, you’re someone from Ohio or someone from Minnesota that comes in, uh, took it, you know, as you’re, you’re polite. If you’re polite, if you’re well-dressed, and, uh, especially if you’re of a certain age, um, they took that very seriously. [00:08:00] Now, another thing that is missing in today’s casinos is the pride that just about everybody had, from the waitress down to the pit boss to the dealer.
Um, they, uh… There was a certain sense of pride that they had, and they… You could see it.
Gary Jenkins: Yeah.
Nelson Conway: And, and it, it was they were there to take care of you and, and, um, it’s just not like… It, it was, it was a very personal experience where you could feel they were trying to make you feel at home, trying to make you feel special, actually.
Gary Jenkins: Yeah. Really. Well, hey, guys, you know, we’re here with Nelson Conway Jr. His book is Vegas Incorporated. And we, we were having a little kinda off the books conversation, and then he just… We started talking about this, how casino life used to be much more personal, and, and it was different before the corporations totally took it over.
And he wrote a book about that transition [00:09:00] from that old personal days when, you know, maybe the mob did have a big interest in a lot of the casinos, but the mob, as you can hear Nelson talk about, they, they really had created a personal experience. I have my own personal story. We had a guy that worked, uh, in the, uh, somewhere in the police department.
He’s a political appointee who ha- who had a lot of Italian politician friends and, uh, Italian backers. Uh-huh. And, and if we went to Las Vegas, he’d give us a name- of a pit boss in one of the casinos, and, and I did it myself, and he’d give you free tickets to go to a show. You know- Yeah … it wasn’t really any real corruption.
I didn’t do anything for anybody, but you just had that connection. That’s the way the old Las Vegas used to be. So this is Nelson Conway Sr., and I really appreciate you coming on the show and, and telling us some stories from Vegas Incorporated. So talk about how you got into this and what, what you remember about your father and, and his place in the casino business.
Nelson Conway: Well, um- This man was someone that’s, [00:10:00] uh… These people, these, these local businessmen, and my father was one of the ma- big m- movers and shakers in that Las Vegas area with names that are probably not on people’s tongue, but Kel Hausels, Bill Moore, Julian Moore, um, Joe Kelly, um, and others. And, um, these men were very serious businessmen.
Integrity and their, their sense of honor was, was just like, uh, solid kind of a feel. At least in my youth, this is how it felt to me. Um, I was born there in Las Vegas in the 1950s, and, um, it was an interesting experience, uh, being there, being at my father’s side a lot of times. Uh, he was an accountant. He, he, he created the largest and most respected accountant, uh, CPA firm called Conway, Moe & Hibbs.
And, um, [00:11:00] uh, they did… Well, just to give you an idea here, I’ve got a list here. These are the, these are the ones that, these are the casinos and the businesses I know that they did businesses for, did work for. They didn’t necessarily… It’s not a complete list because there are privacy laws, and unless something comes up in a, in a legal proceeding or something and this gets disclosed, then, then necessarily you don’t know who he did business with.
But, uh, things that, people that he did business with, the El Cortez, uh, the, the Last Frontier, the Flamingo, the Showboat Hotel, Binion’s Horseshoe, the New Frontier, Golden Nugget, the Sands, and later the Aladdin. And there were certainly more than that, but those are just gives you an idea of the kind of things that he did.
And in addition, he did work for, um, government institutions, local city institutions. Um, so yeah. So, uh, he [00:12:00] was just a very upstanding member of the community. He would contribute his time and effort, not just to his own business, but the March of Dimes. He’d be the president of the March of Dimes or, or a board member.
Uh, Cancer Society. Uh, anything that came in that had something to do with a, with a, um, a charity to help something. Or he… And then he was assigned to the board of the water district because they were running out of the water that was in the water table, and they needed to get m- water out of the Hoover Dam, and so he contributed to that.
Um, he was just a real integral, uh, part of Las Vegas in the ’50s, the ’60s, and even into the ’70s. And one thing that is the seminal point of why I wrote this book is, uh, after I retired, ’cause I retired, you know, doing other things- Um, I decided to just Google my father ’cause I wanted to see what was in, in [00:13:00] the, in the historical record.
Zero. Mm-hmm. Not a word. Now, with p- with AI today, you can, you can get them to go dig in original records, and yeah, you can pull something up. But back when I did this, just as long as three years ago, nothing And it made me angry- Mm-hmm … because I knew what my father had done in Las Vegas. In fact, and I’m just gonna jump the shark here, in 1969 he did something people thought was impossible, and that was in the middle of this mobbed-up, uh, Las Vegas casino business, he, um, made an application to the SEC to bring the Showboat, which was, uh, a, a resort casino that he had invested in and was, was involved in.
His- He had a, he had a, um, um, the El Cortez Enterprises Group, they owned it, and he was a part of that. He brought it [00:14:00] public. He made an application to the SEC. The SEC granted it, and they… Th- that just, like, that just can’t happen in the middle of a mobbed-up gambling industry, but my father knew what he was doing.
He knew how to create the practices and the procedures that would, um, fly, uh, for the SEC, and they granted him to, um, do a public offering of the Showboat in 1969. He does that, and immediately brings the attention to public corporations that it can be done. Public corporations can now invest in Las Vegas.
Almost immediately, the Ramada Inn Corporation wanted to buy the Showboat, as an example. Makes this public thing, buy the Showboat. Well, Kel Housels, who was the major man, I mean, he owned the Tropicana for a while, which i- you know, he’s a local businessman. Uh, he was the man in- the local man in Las Vegas.
He wasn’t ready [00:15:00] to give the Showboat up, so he told them no. But so that’s just like a thumbnail sketch kind of stretching through about my father. Um, and the fact that because he broke that barrier of, of public corporate, uh, investment, it didn’t happen right away. Took two, took two decades, but the Hilton Corporation came in, um, the, uh, all sorts of public corporations came in, and just one by one started picking off all these mob resorts.
And eventually what happened was th- they came in with just such a wash of money that the, the mob, the mob peop- the mob resorts and the mob ownership, they just couldn’t compete, and they were throwing so much money at them they couldn’t say no. So it took a while. Um, I would say most of the… That, that to me was the one of the ver- I won’t say it was the only one, but it was one of the very serious, um, transactions that [00:16:00] occurred that allowed for, uh, the pushing the mob out of Las Vegas Um, and he’s not recognized for any of that.
And I want… You know what? I think I’m gonna write about this.
Gary Jenkins: Yeah.
Nelson Conway: And, and even if it gets published, it doesn’t get published- Yeah … I wanted it out there. I wanted people to know.
Gary Jenkins: Interesting. Now, you know, let’s go back to the mob. And I, I think, guys, you gotta understand, we talk about mob-operated casinos and that kind of a thing.
Well, mainly what the mob did was they influenced Teamsters pension fund money- Yeah … to allow people to buy or borrow that money at a good rate, and they paid it back. And then in exchange, those casino owners would then allow mob guys to move into the casino, put employees in key places, and they’d pay them back by allow- turning a blind eye to the skim, was mainly how that worked.
But now you had a guy that your dad had to have a lot to do with, Benny Binion. He was- True … quite a character. Do you… You got anything about Benny Binion in [00:17:00] there? I’ve, I’ve never really done that whole story. I think it’s a fascinating story.
Nelson Conway: Well, Binion was a fascinating guy, and he was, he was very special for some, for very unique reasons.
Just to back up a s- for a moment, when I first started my investigations, I assumed that some of the, some of the casinos were owned mob-owned, but not all of them. And as I went through, as each casino went through and I did some investigation, to my surprise, and I was f- I was kind of shocked, with very few exceptions, every single resort casino mobbed up.
In fact, there were people trying to, to build these casinos that were locals or they came from California, but they were not mob. Um, they… The mob wouldn’t let them alone. They would, they would shove in. You know, give them an, make them an offer they can’t refuse. So that being s- said, this is East Coast mob too.
[00:18:00] Um, Binion was, um, the, um… He opened up the Horseshoe, the Binion’s Horseshoe in, in Las Vegas, and he was a Texas mobster. Um, killed three p- people that they know of by the time he was 18. Um, very violent, uh, very tough, but not connected to the East Coast mob at all. Uh, he knew them, and they respected him because, you know, he was like them.
And, you know, if they pushed, he pushed back, and he pushed back as hard as they would, and they respected that of him. So when he comes in, uh, he- early in Las Vegas, he was at the Flamingo opening in 1946. Uh, thought it was the greatest whoop-dee-doo he’d ever seen. Um, and, um, he goes and, um- Uh, in, in a little bit, he bu- he, he buys the Apache Hotel, which is an old kind of rundown, [00:19:00] um, hotel and, and, and stuff.
And, and pulls together, uh, really more of a casino, but it was considered kind of a resort, um, in downtown Las Vegas. And, um, he, he’s just, he’s just his own man. First of off, first of all, he refused to let East Coast gangsters come in and, and have a piece of his, of his Binion’s, um, Horseshoe. He just wouldn’t let, allow it.
And he was one of the few people that they’d respect, and they’d let him alone. He got… He had the nickname Cowboy because he was his own man, and he did his own thing, and if you didn’t like it, he’d let you know it. And, um, and here, let me just see if I can rem- there was a few things I wrote down here.
Some of the things that were so unique about, uh, uh, the Horseshoe. Um, back in, like say, the late ’40s, the early ’50s, the casinos that were in, in, uh, downtown were pretty rough. [00:20:00] Um, the floors were wooden floors, rough, rustic wooden floors. The clientele was r- kind of rough. You, you often would see people coming in, uh, miners coming in.
And, and earlier on when the dam, uh, was being built, these guy- these blue collar workers from the dam coming in. Very rough kind of a thing. There’s, um, uh, peanut shells on the floor. There’s, there’s, you know, this kind of thing. And he comes in, and he builds his Binion’s Horseshoe, and he, um, wall-to-wall carpeting.
Yeah. He’s the man that, um, uh, if you were gambling, you got a free drink. That was him. He’s the one that started that. Oh, wow. Well, of course, that’s gonna be interesting, right? So, so they get… So, so people come in. And, um, um, he… One of the things, two things he’s known for. He’s known for, a little later, poker, but before that, he established no limit gaming.
Which no [00:21:00] one else had the guts to do. And the, the, his thing was is you could come in and you could, um, your first bet, no limit. Mm. 10,000, 100,000, on one hand, which scares the holy crap out of anyone that knows anything about odds, right? Um- Yes … and as lo- you, if it’s your first bet, no limit. And then you could, you, then you could bet everything you want to up to whatever your first bet was.
Gary Jenkins: Ah, interesting.
Nelson Conway: So high rollers, right? Yeah, yeah. He drew all the high rollers. They wanted to go there. And when the high rollers go there, then everybody else goes there, and they’re just having this h- wonderful time. Everyone’s got a drink in their hand. Um, y- it was a rollicking good time at Binion’s for, for decades.
Gary Jenkins: And,
Nelson Conway: and he’s the- And I do have a-
Gary Jenkins: He, he’s the guy- Go ahead … that there’s a picture where they have, like, a million dollars-
Nelson Conway: Yes … in
Gary Jenkins: cash as
Nelson Conway: you
Gary Jenkins: walk in. I
Nelson Conway: just, I, I was there. I, I, I saw that. Y- yeah, I, I was there. I [00:22:00] saw that. Yeah, it’s pretty cool to walk in, and, you know, it’s in this glass case, and there’s a, there’s a security guard off to the side.
Yeah, you walk in, you see these million dollars. But there was a guy, um, uh, what was his name? Uh, William Lee Bergstrom. He walked in in the early ’80s, and he walked in with, um, two briefcases, one full of $770,000 cash. The other was empty. He puts it on the craps table, and he puts it on don’t pass. And he, he doesn’t throw the dice.
Someone else is throwing the dice. One throw of the die. Throws the dice, he wins.
Gary Jenkins: Yeah.
Nelson Conway: He takes his winnings, puts it in the empty suitcase, walks away. Uh, a year or two later, he does it again with, like, $240,000 cash. Puts it down on the crap table. Someone throws it. He wins. Picks his winnings, goes away. Does it a third [00:23:00] time with, like, $170,000 about six months later, and, uh, wins again.
And then in, like, 1984, he walks in with a million dollars cash.
Gary Jenkins: Hm.
Nelson Conway: Puts it on the table. And Binion, “Okay.” Throw the die, he loses. He walks out empty-handed, and three months later he commits suicide-
Gary Jenkins: I’ll be darned …
Nelson Conway: with, with a note that says, “I want to be remembered as the suitcase man at Benny Binion’s.” So the guy, yeah, you talk about a- Yeah
a, it was a raucous good time. And when the corporations were taking over, he was the last one. He and his family were the last personally owned, um, mobbed, um, mobbed-up casino. It went all the way up into the ’90s, and every- everything [00:24:00] else was bought out. The last few were, like, the Stardust and, uh, and maybe the Aladdin, and a few others that lasted to the late ’80s.
But he was the, he was… His family was the last ones to own, own an individual casino.
Gary Jenkins: Hm, interesting.
Nelson Conway: Yeah.
Gary Jenkins: You know, you know something I’m really interested in myself, because I, I did this documentary called Gangland Wire that was about the- Yeah … Kansas City end of the skim, and I really got heavy into the gaming control board and interviewed some of the agents out there, and one of the agents for the gaming control board.
And- Yeah … it, it looks to me like the gaming control board, and the politics of it, ’cause I got these wiretaps where they’re, they’re giving money. Carl Thomas from the Stardust or the Tropicana was giving money to a guy named Rose who was running for, uh, uh, governor or Supreme Court justice or something.
And- Yeah … and they went and got, and they got it back. That guy gave it back to him as stuff started coming out. So the gaming control board during that time, it looks like they had been really [00:25:00] heavily politicized and, and good old boys, and then all of a sudden it started changing, and they started coming down on Lefty Rosenthal in particular.
So w- Yes … what do you got on that?
Nelson Conway: Well, it’s an interesting story. Um, it starts with a, with the tax commission. Uh, back in, uh, 1946, um, Bill Moore, who built the Old Frontier and, uh, uh, was part of the Cortez and, uh, a close, a close friend of my father, um, didn’t like it when he saw Bugsy coming in and bought…
Trying to… With B- Gus Greenbaum and, uh, Moe Sedway, uh, when they were, when they came in and tried to buy the El Rancho from Thomas Hull. That was the very first one that was built, 1941. These guys came in in ’45. And, um, and then they went over to the Cortez, and they did buy the Cortez from Kel Hausels. And then of course the whole thing about the Flamingo where, where, you know, they, they s- they sold the El Cortez back to Kel [00:26:00] because he, they needed money to try and build out the Flamingo.
Didn’t like it. He didn’t like Bugsy. And, uh, he hated gangsters, frankly. And so he goes to the state and says, “Look, right now, these, these licenses are given out locally. They’re given out by county sheriffs. They’re given out by, you know, someone that’s in a local level, and these guys have got too much money for anyone to ignore.
And if you could just let this stay the way it is, by, before you know it, you’re gonna have to give a $500,000 bribe to some te- county, uh, official to get a license.”
Gary Jenkins: Yeah.
Nelson Conway: So he said, “I, the state’s gotta step in.” And the s- state kinda half s- Excuse me. I can’t believe this happened. Uh, I’ve got… I’m gonna get rid of this.
Um, okay, yeah. Um, the state kinda went halfway. They didn’t create a new commission, but they used an old commission called the Tax Commission, and they imbued them with the ability to research and find out if there’s any gaming, um, um, connect- any, any mob connections, et cetera. But they didn’t give them [00:27:00] anything to do it with.
They had one investigator, et cetera. So that’s where it started. And, um, the problem that they had from the very beginning, and it, it, the mob came in in the 1950s. I mean, uh, every, every casino short of maybe two were mob, mob, uh, took over, or they, they started with the money and all that kinda stuff. And, um, uh, it wasn’t that hard to find out.
It really wasn’t. But they kept giving these licenses out. Uh, they put up someone that, you know, fig leaf of someone that was local that had an honest face, and they say, “Okay, you, you can have a license.” Um, and it got to be a little embarrassing, especially around the Tropicana, and this was the Tax Commission’s time, uh, when…
And we can touch on this. I’m gonna just skim over it for right now. But, uh, y- you know, it was so obviously mobbed up. And then some, uh, uh, who were, Costello, uh, was, they, they tried to assassinate [00:28:00] him, and they found some numbers. You know, we’ll talk about that if you’re interested later on. But it embarrassed the hell out of the Tax Commission, because they were given lefty r- uh, they were given these guys, um…
It was obvious that these guys were, were mob connected. Anyway, so it goes into the early ’60s, and they, the state realizes, “Hey, we gotta do more than this. We gotta…” You know, so they create this Gaming Commission that takes over from the Tax Commission, give it all sorts of powers, all sorts of this. And I, I’m not gonna go through the details of that, including the Black Book and all that kinda stuff, because there was a problem.
And the problem, especially by the time of 1960, was that, uh, the mob casinos were like cocaine. They drew in millions of, of, of tourists in a town of 40,000 people, 50,000 people, 60,000 people. And the money that they dropped, the millions and millions of dollars of money they dropped went through the entire economy, and the place was booming.[00:29:00]
And, um, whether it was the Tax Commission or whether it was the Gaming Commission, uh, later, their problem was is if they shut down this mobbed up casino, someone would say, “Well, what about this mobbed up casino?” Well, they shut that one down. Well, the Tropicana is, is all connected up with the Chicago outfit.
You gotta shut that one down. The Gaming Commission was afraid and the s- and the state was afraid that if they really exercised their power and got rid of these guys, that, that there would be a cascade effect and it would crash Las Vegas Um, and the problem was, at that point was, there was nobody to take the ga- the, the, Bob’s place.
There was no one else with the money, the expertise, and the interest to run a gambling casino. So, um, this whole idea of the Gaming Commission, “Oh, they shut down this,” or, “They shut down that. The Black Book did this.” The Black Book did nothing. Um, [00:30:00] uh, there’s, uh, there’s a story, uh, about, uh … Let me see if I can remember their names.
That’s my, that’s my problem. There are these two guys. One was, um, the enforcer for the Chicago outfit that was in the Black Book, and another one was the, an LA, um, gangster that, uh, I c- and again, I’m, uh, I don’t wanna go look through my notes, um, that they just thumbed their nose at the Tax Commission.
They were both in the Black Book, and really early on when the Gaming Commission wr- did that book, they just started attending casinos. Um, and so what happened is the gaming people would come up and they’d hassle them, “You can’t be here. You know, this is, we’re against the rules. We’re gonna fine th- this, uh, this casino,” la, la.
And they’d just tell them to go pound sand. They could care less. And they, they’d follow them from casino to s- casino. And they’d go to the pit bosses, the, the Gaming Commission, uh, officials, and say, “You gotta get rid of this guy.” He’s like, Giancana. It, it wasn’t Giancana, this specific story, but [00:31:00] say, someone of the same, same authority of Giancana.
And, and the pit bosses are going, “Uh, do you think I’m gonna tell Giancana to leave this casino? You’re out of your mind. He can do anything he damn well pleases.” And they did nothing. They could’ve closed him down. They probably assessed some fines, and the casino didn’t care. They just pay the fines. And then there was this other guy, the guy from LA.
He was a big gangster. He was in the Black Book, and he walked into the Dunes Hotel with a civil rights attorney, sat down at a cas- at a, at a game with a guy standing next to him. And when they start hassling him, he says, “Look, that’s my attorney. You talk to him, you are breaking the law. It’s my … I have, I have the right of association.
I can sit down anywhere I damn well please in this, in this, in this country, and, uh, your laws are, are unconstitutional. You know, go to hell.” They didn’t do a thing. So this is the, the two sides of it. And, and I understand this, I really do. I understand their fear. They were afraid that if they [00:32:00] really cracked down, that they could crash the Las Vegas gambling industry.
But now you’re talking about Lefty Rosenthal. This is 1982, 1983. By this time, my father has, um, uh, brought the Showboat public in 1969. The Hilton Corporation has come in. Lum’s Corporation, uh, which was a restaurant, uh, uh, business, uh, g- buys the Caesar. Um, Del Webb has bought the Sa- bought the, um, uh, the Mint and, and another one, and just on down the line.
And so there’s a lot of corporate, there’s a lot of corporate business coming on. They’re buying these casinos up. They’re stressing the mob out, and suddenly the Gaming Commission is starting to get some balls. If you excuse me. I don’t know if that’s okay. I hope it’s okay I say that.
Gary Jenkins: Yeah, that’s okay. Um- You know, another thing that happened at that time was they had a sheriff’s election, and Ralph Lamb was voted out, and Ralph Lamb was, uh, he was pretty- Yeah
mob-friendly. Oh, yeah. For a long time. Yeah. He w- he was [00:33:00] a, you know, the quintessential Western sheriff with horses and everything, and a tough law enforcer, but he was- Yeah … pretty mob-friendly. He was pretty tourist-friendly and mob-friendly. He was part of that cabal before that was afraid to do anything about the, the mob, and then he got- Mm-hmm
voted out in, uh, whatever that was, in the, in the later ’70s with, with the kind of a- Yeah … a Dudley Do-Right kind of guy who, who- Mm-hmm … changed everything. And, and he also… They gave up… The sheriff had been investigating the background of these licensees under Ralph Lamb. Mm-hmm. And then that new sheriff, he gave that up, and then the Gaming Commission then appointed their own investigators to do it.
Nelson Conway: Right, yeah. So, so when they, when they did, um, like you say, the Rosenthal situation, Lefty Rosenthal, he, he, you, you see him famously, uh, uh, in Casino. Uh, and it’s pretty… What they show there, I mean, it’s a drama- over-dramaticized, but it’s, it’s [00:34:00] basically what happened. Um, they, uh, he was, he was not the casino manager, but he just kind of, he was like a VP of something and he walked around in the, I think it was the Stardust, if I’m not mistaken.
Gary Jenkins: Yeah, Stardust.
Nelson Conway: And, uh, he, and, and, and he was the, he was the one that, that was doing all the skim for the mob. He was the one supervising it and running all the skim for the mob. Well, by 1980, 1981, they’re going, “We’re not gonna put up with this.” And so they say, “Hey, look, you, you’re not on the gaming license.”
Uh, but we know you’re running this casino even though you’re not officially the, the, the, uh, the casino manager. We know you’re running the casino. So you need to apply to be- put your name on the gaming license. So he puts his name on it. And, um, supposedly Reid, uh, who was, uh, the head of the gaming, uh, the gaming commission at the time that later was a senator for decades- Yeah.
Harry Reid … Harry Reid. Um, [00:35:00] he, he, he was very, um, he asked Rosenthal for favors. He asked, you know, fa- he got comps from Rosenthal at, at the Stardust. Um, there’s also a little kind of things that they might, he might have been in- involved in some sort of prostitution thing in some remote way, uh, that Rosenthal knew about.
Um, and he promised Rosenthal, “You’re gonna get a fair hearing. You’re gonna get a fair hearing.” Well, when the hearing comes up, they bring up all of his mob ties, uh, his Rosenthal, uh, bribing college athletes to throw games, his bribing sheriffs, maybe the sheriff you were talking about, um, and stuff like that.
And they get into it, uh, uh, because it’s very clear where this is going. He’s not gonna get his name approved at all. And so they start, uh, a, a profane inflected yelling match between the two of them in the middle of this, of this, uh, commission. And he’s going, “Didn’t you, [00:36:00] didn’t, didn’t you have dinner with me at the Stardust?”
“No, I didn’t at all.” “You, you telling me that, you know, you’re calling me a liar that you didn’t have dinner with me and sit down, and we didn’t talk about, uh, my influence on this, uh, this guy politically, and that you wanted some influ-“, uh, you know. And they’re yelling, and they’re yelling at each other, inflectives, everything, and of course he gets denied.
Oh, he’s just livid. But he’s kinda like a bad penny. Rosenthal just would not go away. So what he did, does is, is he, um, “Okay, I, I’m not on the gaming license. Fine. Okay, I’m not gonna do the…” Well, he’s, uh, they, they make him, at the Stardust, they make him the entertainment and food and beverage supervisor with a little tiny, little, um, office in, in one of the, uh, curio shops.
And from there, he just goes out and he does what he always did. He supervises the, uh, the casino. He, he goes into the counting rooms. He does all the skim. Uh, you know, millions of dollars over the years. Just millions of dollars back to l- uh, [00:37:00] Chicago and s- Cleveland and, um, and, and others. Um, and, um, the, the, the, the, they, you know, he kind of thumb, thumbs his nose at the gaming commission.
So they say, “You know what? We have a rule here that since you’re the entertainment supervisor, you too under that, under that legal, legal thing, you have to get … You, you still have to be on the, on the license.” So he applies again And he gets turned down again. And he just goes ballistic. And he has this, uh, he’s a crazy guy.
He, he had a late night, uh, TV show that was done outside, uh, i- in, in the Stardust, and he’s r- he’s railing on the commissioners that they’re corrupt and they’re blah, and it is, and it’s just dri- he’s driving them absolutely crazy. Um, well, Rosenthal, uh, takes it to the state, to the state courts, and the crazy thing is that the state courts found in his [00:38:00] favor that the Gaming Commission had acted inappropriately.
And you’re thinking, “Okay.” But then the Gaming Commission takes it to the Supreme Court of Nevada, and they prevail, and so finally the thing’s done. He has to get out of the Stardust. Now, what I find an interesting just as a story is that about a year after all of this, God knows why, he comes out of a restaurant in Las Vegas in like 1982 or ’83 and, uh, uh, puts his foot on the brake and, and the bomb explodes-
uh, i- in his car. Just be- whoever put it in didn’t put it in right because he was protected by something, whether it was the, the, the engine block or something. He survives And then he figures it’s time to get out of Las Vegas, and he does leave. He finally leaves. But this was an example of the Gaming Commission knowing then that if, if they shut him down, that they could get a, they could get a corporate entity to come here and take over if they- Yeah
if they needed to. Yeah.
Gary Jenkins: Interesting. [00:39:00] That, that kind of… At the same time they’re cracking down on the Tropicana and, and a crew there. There’s Joe Agosto- Oh, yeah … who was, who had the, uh, Follies Bergere, who was an entertainer, ’cause he was a convicted felon too. He had the same thing, and he was really worried that all this heat on Lefty was gonna then draw attention to him- Sure
and his place, and he was gonna be out, ’cause he was orchestrating a skim for Nick Civella back here in Kansas City at that same time. And, and- Oh, that’s interesting … and so that started all falling all at the same time. Yeah, we’ve got all these wiretaps where he’s telling Nick Civella and his underboss, Tuffy Luna, all the gossip, the latest gossip about Lefty Rosenthal.
He hated Lefty. He hated… He wanted something done to Lefty. And they tried to do something to Lefty. Uh, i- in the end, you know, he was, he was actually, uh, he was a… He was no doubt, he was a top echelon informant for the FBI, because the whole… all those skimming cases, everything he was right in the middle of.
They, they convicted the heads of [00:40:00] the Chicago Outfit. Mm-hmm. Iuva and, uh, Cerrone- Yeah … and, uh, La Pietra, and the Chicago Outf- I mean, the, the Cleveland mob, the Milwaukee, Frank Balistrieri, and Nick C- or actually Nick Dime, his brother, and Tuffy Luna in Kansas City. And Lefty never even… He just disappeared after that bombing.
He just disappeared, and he never testified. He never went to grand jury. Yeah, yeah. He didn’t have to testify. Yeah. And then he pops back up after it’s all over. So, uh-
Nelson Conway: He ha- he has a nice life in Miami, uh, doing what he did back when he was young, much, much younger, just doing basically legal. I don’t know how illegal, if he had any touch.
But basically, he was a great handicapper and, and he, he was great at sport, at figuring odds for sports betting and racehorse betting, and that’s ju- he just kind of did that to the end of his life, and now that’s true. So you’re right. I mean, how did he get a- how did he get away with that? Yeah.
Gary Jenkins: That’s really true.
And, and he used to brag that he’s the one that brought the sportsbook to Las Vegas into the
Nelson Conway: casino. He did, absolutely. He, he was the very first [00:41:00] one. The Stardust, and you see it everywhere now, uh, have for decades. He was the very first one to, um, uh, sit pe- make comfortable chairs, individual little TVs in every chair that would, uh, uh, racehorse, racehorsing especially.
But bet, you know, sports and other things, and he’s the one that brought s- uh, uh, racehorse and sports betting into the casinos. The other guy was smart. He
Gary Jenkins: also… He was. He also claims he in- introduced the first female blackjack dealers too-
Nelson Conway: Yes, that’s true That’s absolutely- That guy- Well, I, it’s confirmed that that’s…
People say that. They say that that’s true. Yeah. Yeah.
Gary Jenkins: That guy could run a casino. That’s pretty good. That’s for sure.
Nelson Conway: He could. He could. Now, I’ll tell you, if it was 1960, he’d probably, you know, he would’ve gotten away with it. Yeah. He just would’ve gotten away with it. Oh, yeah. He had no options. Yeah. And
Gary Jenkins: things had changed.
You know, things were modernized, as you, you explained. You know, the corporations are coming in. That first case against Lefty has really opened it up for [00:42:00] corporations. I think they were kind of afraid of the, the stench, shall, shall we say?
Nelson Conway: Yes.
Gary Jenkins: Of-
Nelson Conway: It took a while. It took a while. They- Gambling money Yeah.
It took a while. The Hilton was not afraid to come in, but they, they… That’s ’cause they were buying the International, and they just happened to buy the Flamingo as an aside. But yeah, there was a s- And again, that’s, that’s what made what my father did so, um, unique, that he was able to do this. And the only reason he was able to do this is that, um, the Showboat- The Hacienda, uh, after a while, the Hacienda got mobbed up, too.
The Hacienda was, uh, was another one that was a non-mob hotel, uh, resort. But the Showboat, um, uh, had to fight the mob off. The Desert Inn, uh, Moe Dalitz and, uh, m- Kolod and those people. When the Showboat first was being built, it was totally with local money, supported by local, uh, local people. And by [00:43:00] the time it opened, uh, and you don’t know why, how, or when, by the time it opened, both the gambling license and the, um, uh, liquor license, the names on those two licenses were Moe Dalitz, Rudy Kolod, and, uh, there’s, like, two other, Rothkopf and someone else.
Those guys’ names were on the gambling license and the liquor license. No mention of the two biggest in, in, in the investment group, which was Bill Moore, who built the, the Showboat, and Kel Hauseles, who could … I mean, he was, uh, full of integrity, and he was the, you know, the casino guy. He was the big casino guy.
No mention of them at all. And, um, it took about six or seven years and a story involving the Tropicana, um, that, um, Kel Hauseles gained some, some leverage, I believe, uh, with the, the East Coast mob by what he did to, to save the, [00:44:00] the, the, the chestnuts of the Chicago outfit and whoever else was in, in the
Meyer Lansky was involved, too, in the Tropicana, and, uh, was able to … They let him get rid of Moe Dalitz. Moe Dalitz was the casino, um, uh, the casino manager for the Showboat for the first five years, and they lost money every year. D- big surprise. And, um, uh, but anyway, so, uh, I g- you know, I guess that, um
What am I trying to say there? Is that because they were able to finally get rid of all the mob, uh, uh, taint of the Showboat, and they were, they were run by honest people. They run it, and then my dad figured out the accounting necessities, which were a nightmare, to account for how do you manage all this cash?
How do you write it down on a piece of paper that an accountant can look at and say, “I believe that this was done legally,” you know, kind of stuff. Mm-hmm. Um, that was a tr- tremendous lift, and it [00:45:00] could only be done by an honest casino, and there weren’t any around except the Showboat and maybe the Hacienda.
There was the Moulin Rouge, but it got shut down. They shut it down. There was, there was, uh, one or two others that, that they, they just strangled to death. But because they were an honest casino run by a very competent accounting firm, um, it helped enter public corporations into, into Las Vegas. Wouldn’t have been done otherwise.
Couldn’t have been done by a mobbed up resort. There’s no way.
Gary Jenkins: No. And, and the rest is history, as they say. I, I once interviewed a expert on Las Vegas, uh, h- history years ago, and, and that first thing he said, he said, “When they started Las Vegas, there was a lot of money to be made, but it was a lot of ranchers and, and construction workers and, and people who really didn’t know about robbing a, running a casino.”
But all across the United States, there was these, especially Jewish gangsters who had been running, or Jewish mob-connected guys who’d been running carpet joints, which were [00:46:00] these little, uh, clubs outside in the county usually would have a gambling joint as attached to a nice restaurant. They’d been running these carpet joints.
They knew how to run a gangster, Gus Greenbaum. Yeah. And, and Lansky got those guys like that, Moe Dalitz and, uh, some of the Cleveland gangsters to come out here and run those early casinos.
Nelson Conway: Yeah, yeah. And, um, yeah, the likes, like another place where they got a lot of the people that knew what to do things is, um, um, there’s a, there’s a gangster called Co- Tony Cornero that- Oh, yeah
ran, um, a, a lot of, a lot of illegal stuff. But he ran, uh, ships out of the, outside the, uh, waters of LA and San Bernardino and, and did gambling on these ships. And j- just about everyone that was there after, in, in a few years, they all ended up in Las Vegas because they knew how to run casinos. They, the, the waitresses came, the, the, everyone, the shills [00:47:00] came.
Everyone came from those, from the… And that was a big source of the, uh, of, of those people that knew what to do too, as well.
Gary Jenkins: Yeah.
Nelson Conway: Yeah, yeah.
Gary Jenkins: Another interesting character that came in those early days was a guy named Gus McAfee, who was, had been the- Oh … com- commander of the LAPD vice unit. Well, he, he brought those- Oh, God
vice unit experiences into LA, and supposedly started the first club on the strip. I don’t know, but he wa- he’s a mover and shaker early in those days.
Nelson Conway: He absolutely did. He was the first one. Um, he, he opened up the Golden Nugget, and this was a big reveal for me and my father, ’cause a lot of this book that I have is also an exploration into me finding out who my father was, because my belief was, and this is…
He promoted this, and a lot of, a lot of people promoted the fact that it’s like if you, your day-to-day in Las Vegas in the ’50s and ’60s, the mob didn’t even exist. They weren’t there. They, yep. And, um, I didn’t, i- I had the belief that he didn’t work with any gangsters at all. [00:48:00] Well, uh, I was shocked to find out that, uh, in my investigations, I looked at the, the city commissioner’s, uh, um, in Las Vegas, uh, the city commissioner’s, uh, minutes, and there’s a minute in 1959, I think, that my father applied for a, a, an expanded gambling license for Guy McAfee and the Golden Nugget in 1959 And I’m going, “Oh my God.”
He, he did the books for the… And the guy, I w- he was a slimeball. McAfee- Yeah, no doubt about it. Yeah, he was … w- was a slimeball. Um, from LA, not from the East Coast, but, you know. And, and I’m wondering, did he, did he have a piece of the Golden Nugget? Mm-hmm. Because I think there were some rules that only owners could make gambling, um, applications.
Um, I’m not exactly sure. But it means that for sure he did [00:49:00] guy’s books.
Gary Jenkins: Mm-hmm.
Nelson Conway: And it’s like it blew me away. I’m going, “Oh my God.” E- early on. Yeah. Yeah, so.
Gary Jenkins: Yeah, your father was not a one-dimension character, it doesn’t sound like. He was… To, uh, to operate i- in and among all those people, you know, you’re not a one-dimension character.
You, you gotta figure out how to get along.
Nelson Conway: Well, he didn’t plan. When he came to Las Vegas, he came to Las Vegas in 1946, and, um, whatever brought him there just boggles my mind. There’s no answer because he’s very conservative, very risk-averse. Um, and, and he’s, uh, he’s, he’s, he’s, he plied his trade in, um, the San Francisco area, uh, went into the war, stayed in the San Francisco area, just so happened, uh, during the war as an accountant for, for the Navy.
And he gets out, and he and his, and one of his best buddies, um, Kermit Moe. Uh, [00:50:00] Kermit’s the one that really said, “Hey, we gotta go to Las Vegas. We gotta go to Las Vegas.” It’s… And I, I actually didn’t, only found this out very recently. It’s not even in the book. Um, and so they go to Las Vegas, uh, a town of about 22,000 people, total strangers, and, um, it must have been the gambling business that brought him.
Uh, that’s the only thing I can think of. But, uh, early in 1946, he’s at the opening of the Flamingo. And, um, and the Flamingo opening, you hear these stories that, “Oh, it was raining and no one came,” and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That’s all just bull. Uh, uh, the place was packed for three days. They couldn’t…
They were shoehorning these people in. They were… The, the stories about Bugsy and Virginia Hill and that he was a mobster, I mean, everybody wanted to be there, and everybody wanted to see what was going on. And so my father’s there the first night, and, uh, he’s having a grand old time by himself. He’s dressed, you know, best suit, uh, got a drink in his hand, and [00:51:00] he’s leaning on a c- on a, on a cas- on a, um, a slot machine just watching this, the show, the circus.
And in steps this guy, uh, into, into wherever he was, into the pit, into the casino. And he sees my dad, and he walks over and, uh, gets pretty close to him, and he says… He, I don’t know, can I swear on this podcast?
Gary Jenkins: Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Nelson Conway: Is it- Sure. Yeah.
Gary Jenkins: Okay.
Nelson Conway: He says, “Get off the damn machine. Get off the damn slot machine.”
And, uh, my father’s not used to be talking like this. He’s a, a lieutenant. He, he was a, um, a, a lieutenant in the Navy, um, s- uh, of some kind. He stands up. His, his, his 6’2″, and, you know, this guy’s shorter than him. He goes, “Who the hell are you?” And he gets up into my father’s face and he says, “My name is Ben Seg- Siegel.
Now get off the goddamn machine.” And he said s- he said, “Get off the fucking machine,” actually.
Gary Jenkins: Yeah.
Nelson Conway: And then my dad looks [00:52:00] behind him and he sees two kinda hefty, hefty looking guys behind him.
Gary Jenkins: Yeah …
Nelson Conway: kind of, kind of up, and he goes… And he knew Ben, he knew him by reputation, but of course he didn’t know him by, by sight.
And, uh, he got off the machine. And Ben, Ben looks at him for a moment like, uh, “You’re not worth it.” And he turns around and he goes and gets his, his stuff.
Gary Jenkins: Great story.
Nelson Conway: But, but, uh, yeah, yeah. So that was his-
Gary Jenkins: Great story …
Nelson Conway: that was his introduction to the mobsters of Las Vegas.
Gary Jenkins: All right. This is Nelson Conway Jr.
telling about his book Vegas Incorporated. Nelson, I really appreciate you coming on the show. It’s just, it’s been fascinating, really
fascinating- Well, thank you. Thank
Nelson Conway: you … for me especially, ’cause my, my connection to that skimming from the Tropicana and, and that end of it, so it’s, uh, to learn about that other history. ‘Cause I always wondered how that worked, how that gangsters moved out and corporations moved in and became what it is today.
Yeah, yeah. It’s just so interesting. They essentially did to the local businessman what the [00:53:00] mob did to the local businessman, just intimidation and money and pushing them out. Uh, that’s what the corporations did to the mob.
Gary Jenkins: Yeah.
Nelson Conway: Just couldn’t compete. Yeah.
Gary Jenkins: You know, kinda at an interesting little extra note here, I was just there at this, uh…
Asked me to do a podcast at this convention called the Bet Bash, which is about sports gambling. The sports gambling apps- Oh … the sports gambling, that’s g- that’s huge. That’s the biggest growing business going now.
Nelson Conway: Mm-hmm,
Gary Jenkins: mm-hmm. And so it was at the Circa, and this guy that owns the Circa, and I can’t remember his name, he’s a personality, and he has the D at the other end of the Fremont Street.
And these brand new- Oh, yeah … beautiful casinos and sports gambling. Mm-hmm. It’s all about sports gambling, and he’s got his own app- Mm-hmm … I believe the Circa app, and I saw their advertisements after I got back home at the Royals, Kansas City Royals, uh, baseball game. There’s a big advertisement for the Circa, so it’s, uh, you know, it’s always evolving, always changing and, and it’s, uh- Yeah
it’s amazing. They’ve got, they’ve got… You talk about the sports book, [00:54:00] they’ve got like a two story high screen that’s long as a football field, I think. Yep. And, and they got two- I bet … two great big screens for the main games. They got a whole bunch of other smaller screens. It’s crazy. I
Nelson Conway: can imagine. Yeah.
It’s crazy.
Gary Jenkins: It, it’s a hell of a place, man. It wears me out. All right, Nelson, thanks so much for coming on the show.
Nelson Conway: It’s been a pleasure, and, uh, really appreciate it. Thank you for inviting me.