In addition to the interest in casinos, wasn't Cuba also a major route for getting heroin into the country?

Or did he do this on purpose to send them to the USA to harm the economy?

I personally believe that like Las Vegas, over time, Cuba would have become a mecca for both vacationers and gamblers.

U.S. citizens are just not allowed to travel there for vacation. But once the U.S. drops that rule, I think you'll see alot of vacation dollars flood that marketplace, causing Cuba to rebuild and bolster it's tourism industry.

I think it's time for the US to stop that bullshit. Let go of the past and move on. Cuba isn't the enemy anymore.

But speaking of Florida, it's no secret that their Chamber of Commerce would exercise all of their power to prevent the embargo from being lifted. It would cost the state billions in terms of tourism because of Cuba's proximity (only 90 miles from Key West). Not to mention all of the Cubans who would flee the state if they could go home again to live in freedom.

Fidel Castro ruined a lot of lives. Even the most die hard socialists will admit this.

A Cuba without Castro would have spurred more casino growth, which may have impacted the viability of Las Vegas

It's a pity Castro didn't treat the mobsters he captured according the law of war. I read somewhere that Santo Trafficante complained about being held for just "about a month" in a prisoner camp. Why not just put them away for life? What kind of "communist dictatorship" is that?

First off, the Tampa mob had its hand in Cuban politics since Ignazio Antinori in the mid 1930s, due to the large Cuban population in Tampa and ties on the island. Cocaine was flowing from Cuba into to Port of Tampa even earlier, in the 1920s.

Point is, pre-Castro Cuba didn't revolve solely around Lansky/Luciano.

Batista wouldn't have lasted much longer than 1/1/59, Castro or no:

Cuba before Castro had the third-highest per-capita income in Latin America, after Chile and Argentina. While there were great disparities in wealth between cities and the countryside, Cuba also had a thriving, educated, high-achieving middle class. They were the people who were dissatisfied enough to suppor Castro, at least initially. I think that, without Castro, the middle class would have seen Batista as standing in the way of progress and would have forced him out.

The US would have provided impetus: The Kennedy Administration, only about two years later, declared war on organized crime. The US government always called the shots in Cuba. I think the administration would have leaned on Batista to "retire" (as the US had earlier), forced the gangsters out, and would have supported some "democratically" elected leader. Cuba then might have become something like Vegas in the Seventies--still the playground (and maybe the whorehouse) of the Caribbean, but with somewhat more "respectability."