Reno was Nevada’s first gaming capital and the scandal of the nation when open gambling was legalized in 1931. As told in the new book, Mob City: Reno, Reno was America’s Wild Child, a town where “anything goes,” and visitors came from all over to take advantage of everything it had to offer: gambling, drinking, drugs, easy divorce and legal prostitution.
In addition, while the casinos usually offered fair games, the owners ruled the town, and some of the Mob controlled casinos like the Mapes were built with government money. Time magazine reported in their July 1950 issue that the Mapes Hotel and casino was constructed with a $975,000 loan from the US Government Reconstruction Finance Corporation which was originally designed to prop up failing banks and get reconstruction going during the dark days of the Great Depression 18 years earlier, but Reno saw even better uses for the loans in the 1940’s!
Lou Wertheimer, formerly part of the Detroit Mob, ran the Mapes casino in the 1940’s. His brother Mert, formerly of Detroit and Miami, and a casino front man for Meyer Lansky and the New York Mob, ran the Riverside casino across the street in Reno.
At the same time, Charles Binaggio, the Kansas City crime boss, used Reconstruction Finance Corporation funds to build his Tahoe Biltmore casino, but he was gunned down before the casino opened. When the government put harsh restrictions on new loans, the Mob turned to Jimmy Hoffa and the Teamsters Union to build new casinos like Caesars Palace in Las Vegas and the expansion of the Riverside in Reno.
Las Vegas may now be the gaming capital of the world and the first to embrace its Mob beginnings, but Reno was Nevada’s original Sin City, and Mob City: Reno tells all the secrets!
For more info, please visit: http://www.nevadacasinohistory.blogspot.com/
Company Name: Nevada Casino History
Contact Person: Ron Johnson
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Country: United States
Website: http://www.nevadacasinohistory.blogspot.com/
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