Spilotro being sent out to Vegas to replace rather witty savants like Roselli, Greenbaum and Caifano might indicate that Chicago's insulated shadow boss system had some flaws. I can't imagine Accardo sending an animal like Spilotro out to oversee an operation as lucrative as that. I don't think he fully understood how much of an ass Spilotro was, and left the decision to his street bosses, Auippa or whoever else. Accardo was a sharp man who got rich and never spent a night in jail. Spilotro is an uncharacteristic choice for him. Had Accardo been more involved with day to day operations, the Vegas skim may have run smoother, and the midwest families might have been able to make a transition to other rackets in Vegas after the skim trial. The flipside to that however is that Accardo would have likely been caught in the dragnet of the skim case and would have died in prison, if law enforcement and informants could place him in meetings with the participants.
Caifano was not a witty savant, he was Spilotro before Spilotro was Spilotro in Vegas. He was a muscle guy with a big temper, there is a famous incident where he went after a photographer who ended up knocking him out cold. Caifano spent a lot of time running around with Charles Delmonico, Charlie the Blade Tourine's son, who later became a capo in the Genovese family, extorting businessmen like Ray Ryan. Caifano like Spilotro was no deep thinker, he was a thug whose calling card was violence.
