Every year, many players visit Las Vegas to change their lives and become someone different, whether for a weekend, a week, or a lifetime. In the mid-twentieth century, many of those people were criminals escaping from the scrutiny of law enforcement officials. They came to Las Vegas, a city that had recently legalized casino gaming, to reinvent themselves as legitimate businessmen, even community leaders. One of those men was Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel.
Siegel started out as a violent thug on the streets of Brooklyn. He earned the nickname “Bugsy” (which he hated) because he would “go bugs”, or lose his temper, at the slightest provocation. He came to know some of the biggest figures in organized crime at the time, including Charles “Lucky” Luciano and Frank Costello. He also worked as a hit man for Meyer Lansky, the gangster who would found the infamous “Murder, Inc.”
Siegel moved into the gambling rackets when he relocated to Los Angeles. He used mob money to create a nationwide “wire service”, a system of telephone and telegraph communications that would relay the results of any horse race from one area of the country to another. His innovations with this primitive form of technology helped create the basis for the kind of online gaming that players use to this day.
When the opportunity came for the mob to move into Las Vegas, Siegel was one of the first members to establish a presence in Sin City. Siegel then continued his evolution from hired killer to hotel entrepreneur. He attached himself to the new Flamingo Hotel and Casino, one of the first mega-resorts on the Las Vegas Strip. He spared no expense, despite the post-war shortage on building materials, to make the Flamingo the biggest attraction in the desert.
Unfortunately, due to cost overruns and a poor opening week, the Flamingo was shut down in early 1947. Since the money Siegel used to finance the project came from other mobsters, they did not take the losses well. In June 1947, Siegel was shot and killed at his girlfriend’s Beverly Hills apartment. Legend has it that he took a bullet from a .30-caliber rifle through his left eye.
Although Siegel never lived to see the resurrection of the Flamingo (now owned by Harrah’s) or the birth of Las Vegas, as we know it today, his legacy as a founder of the “Vegas lifestyle” was immortalized in the film “Bugsy”, with Warren Beatty playing the title role.