Las Vegas and the Mob

Let me give you some background about count rooms. The soft count room is where paper money is taken and counted. All the cash money that is on live table games like blackjack, roulette, craps, etc. is taken to soft count and so is the paper money from slot machines. None of that money has been counted or verified yet, that's why casinos are so protective of the containers the money is in.

Security officers remove the boxes from each game, put them on a cart, then take it to soft count. They go through one door, officers and carts, that door must close and lock before they can open the next door, that's called a mantrap. The second door is the soft count room.

Soft count rooms are small, about 15' x 15' but there are more surveillance cameras in there than anywhere else in any casino. One casino I worked in had 32 cameras on the ceiling in a small room...picture that.

The mob guys did their skimming as soon as the boxes were opened in the soft count room, the money was counted after the skim, and no cameras.

My first job in a casino was Slots-a-Fun in the 1970's. It was a small casino owned at the time by none other than Carl Thomas. He ended up in the Nevada Black Book and died in prison.

Then I worked at Circus Circus where Anthony 'Tony the Ant' Spilotro owned the souvenir shop. There was also a spa for men in Circus Circus and then one day the owner of the spa was found in his car with a bullet in his head. I don't know for sure, but maybe Mr. Spilotro wanted to take over ownership of the spa.

Car bombings were a common occurrence. Frank 'Lefty' Rosenthal's (of Casino the movie fame) Cadillac was bombed on Sahara Ave., he wasn't in it.

TV news reporter Ned Day was relentless in exposing the illegal activities and the inactivity of the FBI, so of course his car was bombed. Fortunately he was not in it. However, Ned Day met an untimely death at the age of 42 while vacationing in Hawaii. Official cause of death, heart attack. I don't think so.

The Black Book

The Black Book is a list of persons excluded from entering any casino at any time. This is sanctioned by the Gaming Control Board and the penalties set on gaming establishments is severe. The only way to get removed from the list is death.

Casinos in Las Vegas nowadays are conglomerates with several casinos under the umbrella of one big corporation. The mob guys might have been crooks and thugs but they wouldn't let anyone in their casino if they weren't dressed appropriately or when someone lost all their money gambling, the mob boys gave them 'walking money'. That sort of thing just doesn't happen anymore.