For sure Las Vegas is done but in the last 30 years the mob tried again to control a casinò or tried to do it?
I read time ago that a joey merlino relative had problems to have the licence in Atlantic City.

Nah they don't have that type of influence these days.

I wouldn't think they did on the major strip casinos, but what about the ones off the strip like on Freemont?

A lot of people believe the El Cortez is. It's one of the few hotel/casinos in Vegas that's still privately owned, and by Kenny Epstein, no less, who started off at Caesars Palace under Jay Sarno. Sarno was connected to Jimmy Hoffa and Allen Dorfman. This is probably the only connection to old Las Vegas on Fremont Street or the Strip.

You never know..... For Sure...

The issue is that would be a pretty big deal and there are so.many C.I. that the feds would know about some how I. Some way in some capacity.

No way it be kept a secret for a long time.

There are all kinds of floor managers, pit bosses and people like that up and down Nevada who go back to the mob days. The corporate owners that took over in the 80s had to keep a lot of them around to keep the parts moving. The Cortez is the only one that's still privately owned, and by someone with past mob connections. There's no way to see his books. Definitely some opportunities there and I know some poker players who believe it's mob owned. You have to wonder if the authorities even care anymore, with terrorism and everything like that. As long as it's just a cash investment with no scams that would rob employees, players, or state revenues in any way.

They didn't control all the casinos.

Joey Merlino's cousin( also named joey) was having trouble continuing his father (Yogi)'s rebar business but finally after yrs. of court battle was able 2 operate convincing l.e. he had nothing 2 do w/ LCN.

Little Switzerland. The last time I was there was in 2008, when Jackie sold it to Epstein. Jackie remained on the premises until he died. He took a huge blow to his son John passing in 02', his other son Michael is successful in the Casino business, so he decided to sell El Cortez Hotel. It has some of the best teachers in the gambling world and is the best place to start to training and get experience for dealers. You would be a fool to try something stupid there. The place has class.

The mob still has some power in casinos here and there but not like they did in the old days.

With online gambling a huge moneymaker there is no need to get involved in casinos.

In the post Howard Hughes era it was all about the skim. That ended with publicly traded shares and oversight. A privately owned casino like the Cortez would give someone with a shady past an opportunity to make a legitimate investment and "clean up" money, similar to investing in a restaurant or anything else, but that's about it. Kirk Kerkorkian was actually the one who came up with the idea to make casinos so big and with so many employees that it would scare off racketeers. More employees means more social security numbers means more attention from the IRS means more oversight. Not ideal for a group that's trying to keep things quiet. They'd prefer a hundred or so employees who they could know and "trust" (know better than to talk about who they see in the place, or the loose teeth a janitor was sweeping off the storage room floor).

https://lasvegassun.com/news/1997/apr/18/five-with-mob-ties-tried-to-invest-in-casino-indic/


Five with mob ties tried to invest in casino, indictment says

Friday, April 18, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

The defendants are accused of deceiving the National Indian Gaming Commission, which regulates Indian gaming and would have declined to approve ownership by people whom its officials knew were linked to organized crime.

The five people funneled money from illegal gaming in western Pennsylvania into the short-lived River Oak Casino on the Rincon reservation in Valley Center, Calif., FBI Agent John P. O'Connor said. Authorities would not say how much was invested but did reveal that $2.1 million was laundered.

The suspects set up a front company, Columbia Group Inc., and bribed Ruth Calac, a tribal official, with the use of cars, a grand jury alleged. The shell company was named for Columbia University, the alma mater of a consultant to the deal.

Charged were:

-John "Duffy" Conley, 32, of suburban Pittsburgh. Conley, who is serving a 10-year federal sentence for a video poker conviction, is accused of fraud, money laundering, conspiracy and unlawful transportation of slot machines. His attorney, Anthony Mariani, did not immediately return a telephone call Friday evening.

-Henry Albert Zottola, 61, of suburban Pittsburgh. He is accused of fraud, money laundering, bribing a tribal official and obstructing justice. There was no listing for Zottola in Plum, where he lives.

-Pittsburgh attorney Dennis J. Miller, who is accused of conspiracy, money laundering and trying to persuade a witness to lie to a grand jury. Miller did not return a message left at his office.

-Dominic Strollo of Youngstown, Ohio, and Pasquale "Pat" Ferrucio of Canton, Ohio, who are accused of conspiracy.

U.S. Attorney Fred Thieman said all five defendants have ties to the organized crime operation known informally as "La Cosa Nostra." It is Pittsburgh's only mob family.

Investigators said Conley invested the most of any defendant in the casino, which operated only one day before it was shut down by authorities in California because slot machines are illegal there. Conley is also accused of forging a U.S. Justice Department document so he and the others could purchase 250 of the casino's 400 slot machines.

Papers indicated the machines were headed for a bogus address that turned out to be the engineering building on the University of South Carolina campus in Columbia, S.C., said Edward Reiser Jr., an IRS investigator. The machines instead were routed to the Rincon reservation through Kingman, Ariz.

The Nevada Gaming Control Board this week sought to revoke the licenses of Rudolph James Lewis and his wife, Sharon, who sold slots to the investors.

Six other people helped broker the casino deal and soon will plead guilty to conspiracy charges, Thieman said.

They include Paul F. Helton Jr., the Columbia graduate and a consultant to the partners, and Anthony Clark, a former Allegheny County magistrate. Helton introduced some of the principals in the deal, and Clark fabricated an affidavit regarding the casino, a grand jury alleged.

The Rincon Tribal Council's last brush with organized crime occurred 10 years ago during two previous attempts to establish a casino. One tribal member and nine Chicago mafia figures were convicted in 1993 of racketeering, extortion and other charges.

That's funny. Dennis Miller the comedian turned political pundit is from Pittsburgh, too. So, there was also a mobbed up Pittsburgh lawyer named Dennis Miller.

Indian casinos were starting to pop up everywhere in the 90s and I'm sure people were trying to get in at the ground floor and get rackets going thinking it was going to be like 1930s Vegas. Not with the surveillance and transparency we had by that time.