Who Runs Las Vegas?

Who really runs Vegas? Mafia Gang or Indian Tribes
Gambling is a part of many Native Indian cultures. However, to streamline and regulate the gaming, the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) was passed in 1988. This act involved many protecting schemes for the Indian tribes like generating revenues for tribes, providing economic growth and development and safeguarding them from the negative influences. For example, several tribes opened bingo parlours to earn more revenue.

The Rise and Fall of Vegas Mafia

Legal Gambling
The State of Nevada legalized the gambling in 1931 which changed the vegas slots and casino industry forever in the United States. Before that gambling was considered to be an important business in Mafia with illegal money transactions and earned a lot of cash throughout the United States.

The First Mafia Funded Casino
In 1946, Siegel opened the first Mafia funded casino, ‘The Flamingo’. It provided a huge profit for the Mafia operations and legal business for Mafia. But soon Siegel was assassinated by the Mafia gang fearing he may not return the money which he borrowed from the pension funds of the Mafia-controlled unions. As Vegas was not a popular tourist destination for vegas slots in those early stages and also the pressure from the Mafia gang to open the casino sooner than it was original scheduled made Siegel to meet his unfortunate fate. But, another man Lansky who took over the Flamingo made it to taste success within a year.

1950’s More Mafia families relocated to Las Vegas
The success of the Flamingo casino led to more mafia funded casinos and built many casinos like the Stardust, the Desert Inn and the Riviera which was ran by the Chicago outfits who also joined the Mafia families in Las Vegas. Later they grew their business by adding more casinos like Hacienda, Golden Nugget, Sahara and Fremont Casino. The profit from these casinos made the Mafia gang to build more resorts and buildings in the city.

1960’s The First Fall of Mafia
One-man Howard Hughes, a reclusive billionaire changed the face of Las Vegas from a gambling Mafia ruled Vegas to a corporate business culturewhere he made it possible for the corporations to buy casinos and hotels in Vegas by bringing in a change in Nevada Law. He bought 17 casinos and carefully pulled out the Mafia from all the casino business dealings.

1980 – The End of Mafia Era
In the early 1980’s there was a massive attack on Mafia-related business and gang by FBI. This FBI movement cleaned up the Mafia-owned casinos, and it was sold to the legitimate owners. Thus, the City today stands free of Mafia business and soon emerged as a family-friendly tourist spot.

Thus, in the late 90’s Vegas saw an increase in both population and various business ventures apart from casinos. Resorts, medical and educational services rapidly attained tremendous growth in the city. As people began to flood to the Vegas Strip from all over the United States and soon become world’s popular family entertainment city.