The film depicts the situation as follows: Chicago mob bosses thought someone was stealing part of the skim money from the fictional Tangiers Casino (based on the Stardust casino) and assigned the Kansas City family to oversee the operation and look into the theft from the skim. In the film, the character Artie Piscano represents Kansas City. The agents were confident that casino money was leaving Vegas illegally and ending up in Chicago, but they needed to prove it. The feds placed the Stardust and certain employees under physical surveillance. After months of investigation, they identified a pattern for one method of the skim involving Allen Glick’s Stardust and Fremont casinos.

Vegas wouldn’t be Vegas without money, mayhem, and murder. Organized crime figured heavily in the town’s transformation from a dusty train stop into the gaming capital of the world. Some Mob bosses like Meyer Lansky stayed in the background while others like Moe Sedway and Moe Dalitz took to the spotlight.

But nobody hit the nation’s frontal lobe as hard as “Bugsy” Siegel when pictures of his murder hit the front pages of newspapers across the country in the summer of ’47.

That was a big year for Las Vegas. Roads into the city had been improved, trains were booked with visitors, and the Mob’s first new casino on the Las Vegas Strip was turning a profit. Six other clubs in town were owned or controlled by organized crime. Still, the new Flamingo was special.

It epitomized what Las Vegas wanted to become, famous. The publicity the new casino generated was substantial.

Stardust Casino Slots

We like to think the tantalizing allure of a city of casinos operated by underworld figures helped make Las Vegas what it is today. But the new casinos would never have been built in the first place if cash wasn’t pumped into the city by the Mob.

Siegel’s crime friends put more than $3 million of their own cash into the Flamingo. Moe Dalitz matched that amount at the Desert Inn. Other men connected to the Mafia also made their mark in Las Vegas.

Behind the men who worked in Vegas, New York, and Chicago bosses had the most influence over early Las Vegas casinos. Lucky Luciano was famous for holding a meeting of crime family bosses in Cuba where “this Bugsy Siegel thing” was discussed. The consensus was that he had to go. He was hit a few months later.

Frank Costello was best known for being shot while holding the daily win records from the Tropicana Casino. He denied any knowledge, but the FBI finally acknowledged that maybe the Mafia was a real thing.

Tony Accardo, the boss in Chicago during the 1940s and 1950s had the Outfit’s slot machines humming all over Chicago. He also demanded that casinos in Las Vegas use the same slot machines manufactured by Mills Novelty and Jennings Company in Chicago. Those early casinos where Chicago held a large or controlling interest included the Flamingo, Riviera, Stardust, and Royal Nevada.

In the 1960s, a nondescript furniture provider, Parvin/Dohrmann, took control of the Fremont, Stardust, and Aladdin as a front. A taste of the Sands, Dunes and Sahara was going to Chicago also.

At the Tropicana, daily winnings were skimmed until the FBI stepped in with “Operation Strawman” in the late 1970s At the time, Nick Civella in Kansas City and Joseph Aiuppa in Chicago were getting monthly cash distributed by Cleveland front man Milton Rockman. Milwaukee Mob boss Frank Balistrieri also got a piece of the action.

Other Argent Corp. properties found to have been involved in widespread skim operations included the Stardust, Fremont, Hacienda, and Marina. Although the skim was organized by Lefty Rosenthal, he somehow skated and wasn’t indicted. Eventually, nine defendants were sent to jail.

Angelo Lonardo, described by the FBI as the highest-ranking Mafia member to become a government witness, testified Friday that crime families from Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland and Kansas City all shared in money skimmed from the Stardust Casino in Las Vegas.

Lonardo`s testimony in U.S. District Court was the first insider`s disclosure of organized crime`s deep-rooted involvement in casino skimming in Nevada.

Lonardo testified that he received as much as $10,000 a month as his share of the skim proceeds while he was boss of the Cleveland mob before he was sentenced in 1983 to 103 years in prison on a narcotics conviction.

Stardust Casino Skim

Lonardo, 74, appearing nervous during his testimony, only recently agreed to testify against eight reputed crime-syndicate bosses and their associates in the hope of reducing his prison sentence. He has been in protective custody since August.

The eight are charged with conspiring to skim $2 million from the Stardust Hotel Casino between 1974 and October, 1983.

Lonardo`s testimony is considered crucial to the government`s contention that a conspiracy was hatched by the underworld bosses so they could benefit on a regular basis from the casino skimming.

Among the eight defendants is Milton Rockman, 72, Lonardo`s brother-in-law by his marriage to the daughter of the late Cleveland crime chief John Scalish. Rockman glared at Lonardo as he testified that the two had been friends for more than 50 years.

Earlier, Lonardo described Rockman as the Cleveland mob`s man who handled labor matters and finances.

According to Lonardo, the skimming profits for each family averaged $40,000 a month. But sometimes the take was $65,000 a month for each, and on some occasions it reached $100,000, he said.

Lonardo said the late William Presser, a Cleveland Teamster boss and a trustee of the union`s pension fund, received $1,500 a month. Former Teamsters President Roy Williams testified earlier this month that he also got $1,500 a month for seven years.

The Teamsters officials` share came as a result of their votes approving a $62.7 million union loan to San Diego businessman Allen Glick so he could buy the Stardust Hotel in 1974, according to government lawyers.

Lonardo related how he rose through the ranks of the Cleveland mob, being initiated in the late 1940s, then becoming underboss in 1976 and later the boss.

It was Rockman, Lonardo said, who told him that mob bosses in Milwaukee and Kansas City had used their influence with Teamster Union Pension Fund trustees for the Glick loan.

Stardust Casino Shirt

Glick testified a week ago that he sought help from Frank Balestrieri, reputed Milwaukee crime boss and one of the defendants, in obtaining the loan. Glick claimed he was unaware of Balestrieri`s reputation as a crime boss.

When the skimming began in late 1974, only the crime families from Kansas City, Milwaukee and Cleveland shared in the benefits, according to testimony. But a dispute arose over proper distribution of the proceeds by the late Nick Civella, boss of the Kansas City mob.

Stardust Casino Skimming

The Chicago crime family, allegedly headed by Joseph Aiuppa and John Cerone, both defendants here, were called to mediate. The result was that the Chicago mob was cut in for a share of the skim money.