What reasons did Carlo Gambino have for double crossing Alberto Anastia(sp)? Anyone know?

Greed and ambition. Gambino wanted to be Boss. It didn't help that Anastasia treated Gambino badly (especially in front of other people) but Don Carlo was ambitious and he took advantage of all opportunities including that presented to him by Vito Genovese.

Oh right, I suppose that same greed and ambition made Don Carlo to plot against Vito Genovse, is that true? Thanks for your reply.

Something to do with a drug deal,if i remember correctley

Don Carlo PROBABLY had the plot against Genovese in his head all along (even before agreeing to help take down Albert Anastasia). The fact that Frank Costello and Meyer Lansky backed him against Genovese was a no-brainer. (They all had a hand in setting Genovese up on drug charges).

Thanks again that was realy useful, SC and DE Niro.

Exactly what SC said. Greed and power is first and foremost in the minds of these people, no matter what other reasons they may give. They are full of ego and greed.

They are opportunists too. Let me expand a bit more on that.

Albert Anastasia was becoming a killing machine. And perhaps what sealed his fate for him and also provided Carlo Gambino with a good reason to request that Anastasia be put to rest was that he ordered the killing of a man named Arnold Shuster.

Arnold Shuster was a shoe salesman. Anastasia saw Shuster on television talking about how he was instrumental in the capture and arrest of bank robber Willie Sutton. Anastasia didn't like that Shuster was talking all over TV, feeling that he was a rat, so he ordered that Shuster be killed.

But by killing Shuster, who was not mob connected, but only a civilian, Anastasia violated an unwritten syndicate rule that outsiders are not to be killed unless that outsider was posing a harmful threat to the syndicate itself. Shuster never posed that kind of threat.

The murder of Shuster brought a lot of unneeded heat and attention on the mob. Anastasia's first mistake.

So mob boss Vito Genovese, who was never a fan of Albert Anastasia, used this opportunity to gain support for his wanting the removal of Anastasia.

Meanwhile Anastasia's underboss, a man named Carlo Gambino, also saw this as an oppportunity to better himself and gain some status and power within the syndicate. So Gambino secretly formed an alliance with Vito Genovese and Joe Profaci.

But Albert Anastasia still had one thing on his side : Meyer Lansky. And Vito Genovese would not go against Meyer Lansky, at least not in the open. It was no secret that Lansky had no real love for Vito Genovese. But again, as SC said in his post, greed is the primary motivator in these things. Lansky was making all kinds of money over in Cuba, in the casino business. And while Lansky took care of the other mob bosses, Albert Anastasia was not happy with the cut that Lansky was giving him and tried to get Lansky to give him more money from the Cuba casino business.

Once again, greed on both sides.

So when Lansky refused to give Anastasia a bigger share in his casino business, Anastasia decided that if Lansky would not give him a bigger cut, then he himself would set up his own casinos in Cuba. Anastasia's second mistake.

Up until this point Lansky would not get involved with the fued going on between Anastasia and Genovese. But now that Anastasia was threatening to move in on Lansky's gambling empire, this changed things.

So Lansky gave his approval to the request to have Anasatsia wacked.

On the morning of October 25th, 1957, Albert Anastasia decided to go to the barber shop in the Park Sheraton Hotel for a shave. As Anasatsia relaxed in the barber's chair, face covered with hot towels and eye's closed, gunman entered the barber shop and opened fire on Anastasia. The first several shots did not kill Anastasia ad he jumped from his chair and tried defending himself, but the next several shots were fatal, killing Anastasia.

With Anastasia out of the way, Carlo Gambino had now formed an alliance with Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello, thus doublecrossing Vito Genovese. But instead of having Genovese wacked, they devised a plot that entrapped Genovese in a narcotics conviction, sending Genovese away to prison for the rest of his life.

And who eventually would benefit from all this deception, doublecrossing and killing? None other than Carlo Gambino who eventually became the head of a family that still bares his last name until this very day.

Greed. The bottom line is always greed.



Don Cardi

Greed and power--that's the Mafia in a nutshell. Gambino played those tunes like a violin, which is what made him the most effective modern Don. The guy was a regular Machiavelli. He put up with The Mad Hatter's humiliations, which made Genovese think he was ready to take over--and become Vito's boy. But Don Vitone's move to become Capo di Tutti Capi was brought to a humiliating end by the Apalachin bust. Then Gambino conspired with Costello and Lansky to have Genovese set up in the drug bust that sent him to the Federal pen in Atlanta for the rest of his life. Gambino later became a target of an assassination plot by Joe Bonanno and Joe Magliocco. The plot was revealed to Gambino by a Magliocco captain. His name: Joe Columbo. The Commission forced Magliocco to step down--and Columbo, now totally beholden to Gambino, became Don.
The issue of Anastasia, Lansky and the Havana casinos gets pretty complex, depending on which source you read. Lansky was undeniably a trusted associate of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Many sources say Lansky "owned" "all" the casinos in Havana. But the most reliable source, Lansky's biographer Robert Lacey, says that Batista hired Lansky as a consultant when he returned to power in '52 in a coup. Tourists had been boycotting Cuba previously because the games were rigged. Batista brought Lansky in to run the games because he had a reputation for giving the suckers an even break--Lansky felt the house odds were good enough. Lansky was paid $100k/year as a consultant. His brother Jake ran the casino at the Nacional. Lansky invited others in--notably Santos Trafficante--and they had ownership positions. Lansky didn't own until he opened the Havana Riviera in March, 1958, with $5 million of his and $6 million of Batista's money. Castro owned it 9 months later.

As for Anastasia:

One story has it that Batista, who had big labor support, got pressure from the hotel and casino workers' unions to give some of the casino action to the unions. The Havana Hilton was opening, and Batista delegated the choice of casino operator to a powerful union leader. He was the guy with whom Anastasia was meeting prior to his fatal shave. It's not clear from that account that there was a conflict between Lansky and Anastasia because, apparently, Lansky had no control over who got the casino operation at the Hilton.

Just like to thankyou all for posting. I just needed that clearing up.

One of the ways Lansky cut down on the cheating was by implementing the practice of dealing Blackjack from a six-deck shoe. Using a six-deck shoe not only helps the house in terms of percentage, but it also cuts down the odds of cheating by the dealers and players. Lansky's idea of dealing Blackjack from a six-deck shoe also became a common practice in the Las Vegas Casinos.



Don Cardi

That reminds me of a great Stu Ungar story. On a hiatus from poker, Stu decided to take up blackjack.

One night at Caesar's he's up over 75 grand and one of the pit bosses comes over and cuts him off. Stu retaliates by correctly forecasting the last 18 cards in the single deck shoe, proving he was not a cheat, but a genius at card counting.

As a result, the one deck game was removed from Caesar's and ultimately from the other casinos, as well.

What did Stu get for his contribution to the gaming world ?

Banned for life from playing blackjack in any big-time casino, his picture posted in every security room from coast to coast.

The last time I was in Las Vegas I was having breakfast one morning and one of the casino croupiers who was working the roulette table I was at the night before just happened to be sitting at a table next to us. We began to talk and I asked him what right the casino's had to throw someone out if they suspected them of card counting. After all it was not cheating, but an edge if a player had the ability to count cards.

He explained to me that in Nevada, the way that the laws were written for the casinos, is that it is not your RIGHT to gamble in a casino, but a given priviledge! And because of the way the language is written in the laws, the casino has the right to ask you to leave and stop you from gambling in their casino even if they don't like the way that you smile.



Don Cardi

"Language" is binding in any written document, just like a union contract.

I wonder, not who, but what influenced the representatives to write the language in favor of the Casino owners?



Don Cardi

I'm sure that somewhere along the line, Bugsy, er, sorry Ben, Benny convinced someone that either his brains or his signature would be on the contract.

A fascinating book that I finished recently, "Super Casino," by Pete Earley
http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?i...TF8&s=books
opens with an explanation of card counting--how it originated, how it's done, and when and how the Nevada gaming industry went to multiple decks in the shoe. And yes, it is a "privilege" for a casino to "permit" you to gamble. Shouldn't be a surprise that since gaming is Nevada's biggest industry, the legislature and the courts have upheld that "principle."