Las Vegas Better Deal Under The Mob?

Above, looking south on the Las Vegas Strip. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

I've been catching up on 1990s movies in all genres.

The latest was the 1995 Martin Scorsese movie, Casino. It stars Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Sharon Stone and James Woods.

It is based on real-life events that led to the downfall of the Mafia's control of Las Vegas casinos.

The movie's synopsis:

In early-1970s Las Vegas, low-level mobster Sam "Ace" Rothstein (Robert De Niro) gets tapped by his bosses to head the Tangiers Casino. At first, he's a great success in the job, but over the years, problems with his loose-cannon enforcer Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci), his ex-hustler wife Ginger (Sharon Stone), her con-artist ex Lester Diamond (James Woods) and a handful of corrupt politicians put Sam in ever-increasing danger. Martin Scorsese directs this adaptation of Nicholas Pileggi's book.

The real-life hotel the Tangiers Casino was based on was the Stardust Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. It is quite entertaining. The senator in the movie (played by Dick Smothers) was based on Sen. Harry Reid (so I've been told). 

My grade on the movie: A-.

The movie got me thinking: Was Las Vegas better when it was run by the Mafia?

Back in 1973, two friends and I spent spring break in Las Vegas and I came home with half of what I brought with me. I did well at the Hacienda Hotel's roulette tables. Food was cheap. I have the feeling that others do that Las Vegas was a better deal when it was run by the mob than with the greedy corporations who run it now.

Here's some snippets on this from an article in the Las Vegas Sun:

Things were better when the Mob ran this town. We hear this often enough to make it almost a cliché, and with last week’s opening of the Mob Museum, er, the National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, it seems like an argument worth examining.

Also, think of the extreme irony of claiming there was less crime when the Mob ran the town. “They were out doing burglaries!” Green quipped, referring to the “Hole in the Wall Gang.”

As I learned at the museum, which opened Valentine’s Day on Stewart Avenue downtown, the skim at the Stardust was $7 million per year; at the Flamingo, it was $36 million from 1960 to 1967; at the Tropicana it was $150,000 per month. That money was stolen from the community and sent to criminal gangs back East.

(Given the events of the past few years, I can appreciate that, for many people, banks vs. organized crime is a close call.)

As Sloan notes, cocktail waitresses, bartenders and maître d’s made great money in Mob days, in part because the IRS wasn’t as rigorous about collecting taxes on tips. The casinos didn’t have to report when someone won a big jackpot, and let’s remember that there was no competition from Atlantic City or anywhere else.

As for the food? If you look hard, you can still find a $7 prime rib dinner, though I’m not sure why you would. Our food these days is more expensive, but it’s also far better.

From the Texarkana Gazette:

But over the years, the old guys died off and successful prosecutions ran off much of the hidden ownership of the gambling clubs.

And that's too bad-at least in my opinion. The mob knew how to run a casino.

They expected the casino to make money and didn't care if the rest of the place showed a loss. Give enough play at the tables and everything was free. But even the low-rollers who stuck to the nickel slots got a cheap room and cheaper meals. Drinks were free at the tables and machines and didn't cost much more at the bars.

Today, the odds of winning are worsening. One now has to bet more to win less.

From the Daily Mail (U.K.):

Gamblers are wagering more than ever in Las Vegas as casinos increase odds and reduce payouts in some of the most popular games.

Blackjack losses on the Strip were nearly $1 billion last year, according to official figures - the second highest on record after 2007.

The increase comes as casino bosses attempt to draw in 'higher value customers' while players with less cash to wager are priced out.

Roulette has also had odds increased in many places. The number of triple-zero tables - which add another slot to the wheel and increase the odds of hitting a chosen number - has increased.

Minimum bets are also rising, meaning players must risk more cash to play games.

The changes, reported in an analysis by the Wall Street Journal, also come as the overall price of a vacation to Las Vegas increases, with costs at hotels and restaurants also on the rise.

These days, I rarely go to Las Vegas. When I do, I don't gamble as I used to. I rarely go gambling at the local Red Rock Navajo Casino in Gallup. I just go there for their prime rib special on Fridays.

California Woke Mob Coming for Marilyn Monroe!

Above, Marilyn Monroe's crypt at Westwood Village Memorial Park. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

During each passing day, more and more idiots come out of California's woodwork.

Now the California woke mob is going after Marilyn Monroe (or at least her statue in Palm Springs).

Here's the latest from the "Land of Fruits & Nuts".

From For The Love of News:

Marilyn Monroe is under attack! Or at least the 26-foot statue in Palm Springs, California is. The statue, called “Forever Marilyn” that stands in front of the Palm Springs Art Museum and is the target of a group of woke nutjobs that call themselves the Committee to Relocate Marilyn. I think a better idea would be to relocate the wokesters, but I don’t get a say.

As if Civil War statues weren’t enough, Marilyn is going to get the cancel culture treatment if these people get their way. Check this out.  

Perhaps there are bigger fish to fry than a statue of Marilyn Monroe if you are truly concerned about objectifying women? Isn’t California the home state of the porn industry? Aren’t sneaky dudes still taking trophies from real female athletes and creeping their locker rooms? Thought so. Perhaps a statue should be on the back burner until some real work is done to protect women and women’s rights. Nah, of course not. It is much easier to rage against an inanimate object as opposed to a faker in a wig and lipstick. Much safer as well.

After you're done shaking your head in disbelief, to read the full story, go here.

Woke Mob Is Now After 007

Above, my collection of Ian Fleming James Bond novels. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

"The campaign to make everything culturally bland, boring and sterile continues" - Summit News.

James Bond 007 has succumbed to the woke mob, or at least the owner of the literary rights to Ian Fleming's novels has.

Of all the idiotic things in recent years, this one really takes the cake. Ian Fleming's original James Bond novels are being censored (this is what's really going on) so that people won't get offended by racial, sexist and other "politically incorrect" terms and attitudes.

Summit News reported on a story in The Telegraph that the James Bond novels of Ian Fleming are to be edited by "sensitivity readers".

They wrote, in part:

And then the woke mob came for Bond.

According to a report in The Telegraph, “sensitivity readers” are being employed to scour the original James Bond books to look for and remove any ‘outdated’ content including ‘racist’ comments.

The latest publications of the books, written by Ian Fleming, will also reportedly contain a trigger warning notifying readers that they may find some of the storylines hurt their feelings.

The warning will read “This book was written at a time when terms and attitudes which might be considered offensive by modern readers were commonplace.” 

The editing of the books is to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the first ever Bond book Casino Royale.

What exactly is ‘offensive’ is yet to be determined, but presumably it could extend to the fact that Bond is a straight white man who likes to fratenize with multiple women at any one time, drinks heavily and doesn’t have a single simp cell in his body.

The report notes that ‘sexual descriptors’ have been edited or altogether removed, including one scene in Live and Let Die where a group of men watching a stripper are described being “like pigs at the trough”.

At this rate, they will have to completely rename Octopussy.

Here's what The Telegraph posted, in part:

James Bond novels have been rewritten to remove a number of racial references from Ian Fleming’s work, The Telegraph can reveal.

All of the author’s thrillers featuring 007 are set to be reissued in April to mark 70 years since Casino Royale, the first book in the series, was published.

Ian Fleming Publications Ltd, the company that owns the literary rights to the author’s work, commissioned a review by sensitivity readers of the classic texts under its control.

The Telegraph understands that a disclaimer accompanying the reissued texts will read: “This book was written at a time when terms and attitudes which might be considered offensive by modern readers were commonplace.

“A number of updates have been made in this edition, while keeping as close as possible to the original text and the period in which it is set.”

The changes to Fleming’s books result in some depictions of black people being reworked or removed.

Dated references to other ethnicities remain, such as Bond’s racial terms for east Asian people and the spy’s disparaging views of Oddjob, Goldfinger’s Korean henchman.

References to the “sweet tang of rape”, “blithering women” failing to do a “man’s work”, and homosexuality being a “stubborn disability” also remain.

This is just plain sheer stupidity. What's wrong with, "Don't like it, don't read it"?

Will "Pussy Galore" be soon known as "Penelope Galore"?

Lake Mead's Watery Graves

Above, the section of Lake Mead nearest to the Hoover Dam in 2018. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

It looks like some people got the "Luca Brasi treatment" in the Las Vegas area as bodies are starting to be revealed by the dwindling water level of Lake Mead. Luca Brasi, is a fictional mafia character from The Godfather (1972) who ended up "sleeping with the fishes" thanks to a rival mafia family.

One was found in an oil drum, which appears to have been in the lake since the 1970s or 1980s. Another was just found in a newly exposed sandbar.

Back in the early days of Las Vegas, the gambling was controlled by the mob until it started being heavily regulated by the state government and corporations replaced the mob. Las Vegas was actually more fun during the mob days as hotel and food prices were much more reasonable and one could get better odds in machine gaming. The appearance of bodies in Lake Mead harkens back to those days.

The Navajo-Hopi Observer has an interesting article on the recent finds.

They start with:

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Stories about long-departed Las Vegas organized crime figures are surfacing after a second set of unidentified human remains were revealed as the water level falls on drought-stricken Lake Mead.

The reservoir on the Colorado River is about a 30-minute drive from the mob-founded Las Vegas Strip.

"There's no telling what we'll find in Lake Mead," former Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman said Monday. "It's not a bad place to dump a body."

Goodman was a defense attorney who represented Mafia figures including ill-fated Anthony "Tony the Ant" Spilotro before serving three terms as a martini-toting mayor who made public appearances with a showgirl on each arm.

He declined to speculate about who might turn up in the vast reservoir formed by Hoover Dam between Nevada and Arizona.

It looks like some were made offers they couldn't refuse.

To read more, go here.