Vegas and the Chicago Outfit: The Skimming of Las Vegas

Chicago was the worldwide leader in gangster wars and bootlegging in the 1920s, as Al Capone set the stage for his tremendous success and popularity. When he was safely away in prison, the Chicago Outfit expanded into more rackets involving gambling and loan sharking, making bosses like Paul “The Waiter” Ricca and Tony “Joe Batters” Accardo rich beyond even Capone’s wildest dreams. With prostitution and union corruption, Chicago had more bookies, card clubs, and clip joints than evil casino spots like Reno, Hot Springs, Toledo, and New York combined. So, they weren’t the first to find gold in Las Vegas, but they were sure good at draining the cash away once they tasted Sin City’s pleasures and corruption! For forty years, Chicago led the way in untaxed and hidden money by skimming at often crooked games of no-chance. When Las Vegas jumped in the early ’40s, the Outfit’s interests in Las Vegas captured the Downtown area and went uptown to the Strip and the new Flamingo casino. To keep everything straight, Las Vegas imported known killers as local enforcers from the Outfit like Marshall Caifano and Tony “The Ant” Spilotro. Things went Chicago’s way for decades as the Chicago Outfit drained hundreds of millions of dollars from a dozen Las Vegas casinos. How they did the deed right in front of the FBI, how it went untraced for decades, and how they moved the cash from the desert to places across the US and Europe is all right here in “Vegas and the Chicago Outfit.”