June 17, 2018 Sunday
Today, I spoke at the first MobWorld Summit. It
was held in Las Vegas at the Plaza Hotel convention center near the Mob Museum,
where some of the forum’s events were presented. This new organization is for
people interested in the history of American gangland, and it is promoted by Larry Henry. He is a former Las Vegas Sun newspaper editor, and he was a teacher
of journalism at the Haas Hall Academy in Rogers, Arkansas before becoming headmaster.
At the Summit, I presented the authentic histories of the
top gangsters who built 80% of the Las Vegas Strip resorts from the Flamingo in
1946 to Caesars Palace in 1966, as presented in my 30 Illegal Years to the Strip. I also presented how these men
taught me the casino business and positively influenced both my career and my development
into manhood.
The audience was knowledgeable about mob history and was
invigorated, asking me questions for a couple hours after my presentation. I
talked with a few former associates, as well as some of my former UNLV students,
and they brought back many wonderful memories.
I also visited with a couple of friends. One is former Kansas
City Detective Gary Jenkins, who assisted FBI agents for a year to build the Las
Vegas Strip casino skimming cases fictionalized in the movie Casino (1995). He wrote the fine book Leaving Vegas, which contains many FBI wiretapped
transcripts of the Midwest Mafia gang leaders discussing their casino skimming
activities. The other is Casey McBride, who is an expert on Frank Costello. He presents
information about this top gangster on his websites
FrankCostelloHistory.com and NationalCrimeSyndicate.com. What
a great time I had!
This photo was taken after my MobWorld
Summit speech. To the left is former KCPD Detective Gary Jenkins, and in the center
is event developer Larry Henry. Their backgrounds are above.
