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Showing posts from November, 2022
 My latest book, Vegas and the Chicago Outfit , took a little longer to finish researching than I had hoped. Instead of a year to research, write, and edit, my plan for October 2020 somehow went south. That's my way of saying I'm two years late getting my most detailed compilation of the rise of the Chicago Outfit and their inexhaustible takeover of every money-making casino in Las Vegas down in book form. If that description sounds exaggerated, it's not. The Chicago Outfit came to the party in Las Vegas a bit later than the New York families. Still, by the late 1940s, the Windy City group had firm control of a half-dozen casinos from the Flamingo to the El Rancho, Thunderbird, and others.  By the 1960s, they had skimming operations in the Sands, Dunes, Aladdin, Riviera, Mint, Fremont, Stardust, Desert Inn, and of course, Caesars Palace. The Chicago Outfit simply took the reins and shook harder than any other families, even with Detroit, Philadelphia, New York, Kansas City