{"id":249287,"date":"2022-12-23T09:04:58","date_gmt":"2022-12-23T15:04:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?p=249287"},"modified":"2023-10-28T07:51:13","modified_gmt":"2023-10-28T12:51:13","slug":"vegas-myth-busted-the-mob-buried-hundreds-of-bodies-in-the-desert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/vegas-myth-busted-the-mob-buried-hundreds-of-bodies-in-the-desert\/","title":{"rendered":"VEGAS MYTHS BUSTED: The Mob Buried Hundreds of Bodies in the Desert"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s no myth that the mafia controlled the Las Vegas casino business from the mid-\u201940s until at least the late-\u201970s. The myth is that they buried hundreds of bodies in the Las Vegas desert while doing so.<\/p>\n

\"Spilotro
The unmarked grave where the bodies of murdered Las Vegas mafia kingpin Tony Spilotro, and his brother Michael, were buried in 1986. It was located in an Indiana cornfield, not in the desert outside Las Vegas. (Image: Associated Press)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThat is a reputation that Las Vegas has, like, you walk around outside, out in the desert in Las Vegas, you’re bound to run across a victim of the mob,\u201d Geoff Schumacher, vice president of exhibits and programs for the Las Vegas Mob Museum, told KNPR<\/em> this week. \u201cBut if you look back in the records \u2026 the bodies found in the desert or dumped in the desert, you can count them on two hands, probably, as opposed to the hundreds that people believe are out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Myth Interpreted<\/b><\/h2>\n

The myth springs from a 1963 New York Times bestseller, “The Green Felt Jungle,” the first book to expose the secret criminal ownership behind most of the Las Vegas Strip casino resorts.<\/p>\n

Nationwide, people had a general sense of crime in the city, but not the properties or the names until that book came out,\u201d Schumacher said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So many bodies were supposedly buried in the desert outside Las Vegas, the idea of someone who \u201cknows where the bodies are buried\u201d entered mainstream usage. Supposedly, it\u2019s even how \u201c86\u201d became a verb. That number is said to derive from the mobster order to drive a victim 80 miles out of town and put him six feet under.<\/p>\n

Wait! Before you commit that last factoid to memory, it’s another myth. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, \u201c86\u201d was bartender code for being out of a menu item.<\/p>\n

No Kill Zone<\/b><\/h2>\n

Mobsters made a concerted effort not to kill their foes in Las Vegas, which would have been bad for the casino business. Mobster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel was murdered in Beverly Hills. Gus Greenbaum, his replacement at the helm of the Flamingo, met his end in Phoenix. Anthony \u201cTony the Ant\u201d Spilotro, who operated the skim at the Stardust, got whacked in Chicago and was buried in Indiana. Racketeer and bookmaker \u201cRussian\u201d Louis Strauss was picked up at the Desert Inn and driven to his murder site in California.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey definitely tried to do that kind of nasty business outside the city limits,\u201d Schumacher said.<\/p>\n

How Vegas Buried the Mob<\/b><\/h2>\n

The mafia was eventually evicted from the casino business by several trends. The most significant was Nevada\u2019s passage of the Corporate Gaming Act. This 1967 legislation allowed corporations to own casinos without every shareholder having to be licensed, thus paving the way for the Las Vegas Strip\u2019s current roster of corporate resorts.<\/p>\n

That same year, billionaire Howard Hughes purchased the Desert Inn from Cleveland syndicate member Moe Dalitz just to avoid being evicted from his penthouse suite. Hughes got addicted to the business, going on to purchase the Sands, Frontier, Silver Slipper, Castaways, and Landmark.<\/p>\n

\n

By the \u201980s, Nevada Gov. Michael Callahan helped to extricate the residual mob influence from the casino business. He did so by appointing members to the Gaming Control Board who would be more resistant to their bribes and threats.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

According to Schumacher, this could explain the body found in the barrel<\/a> in Lake Mead last year.<\/p>\n

(Maybe it) was somebody who had been discovered to have been an informant or government witness,\u201d he told KNPR.<\/em> \u201cThere was a lot of paranoia in the mob at that time about who they could trust.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The mafia is still around. Until the mid-2000s, they even operated a successful Las Vegas strip club<\/a>. But these days, they\u2019re relegated to the dark corners of Las Vegas commerce \u2013 side rackets such as illegal drugs, prostitution, and money laundering.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Look for \u201cVegas Myths Busted\u201d every Friday on\u00a0<\/strong>Casino.org.\u00a0<\/b><\/em>Click here<\/a>\u00a0to read previously busted Vegas myths. Know a Vegas myth that can use busting? Email\u00a0corey@casino.org<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s no myth that the mafia controlled the Las Vegas casino business from the mid-\u201940s until at least the late-\u201970s. The myth is that they buried hundreds of bodies in the Las Vegas desert while doing so. \u201cThat is a reputation that Las Vegas has, like, you walk around outside, out in the desert in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":249291,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[81886,88494],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nVEGAS MYTHS BUSTED: The Mob Buried Hundreds of Bodies in the Desert - Casino.org<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It's no myth that the mafia controlled the Las Vegas casino business from the mid-\u201940s until at least the late-\u201970s. 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