Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas

Nicholas Pileggi

oct 2016 · Open Road Media

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The true story behind the Martin Scorsese film: A “riveting . . . account of how organized crime looted the casinos they controlled” (Kirkus Reviews).

Focusing on Chicago bookie Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal and his partner, Anthony Spilotro, and drawing on extensive, in-depth interviews, the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of the Mafia classic Wiseguy—basis for the film Goodfellas—Nicholas Pileggi reveals how the pair worked together to oversee Las Vegas casino operations for the mob. He unearths how Teamster pension funds were used to take control of the Stardust and Tropicana and how Spilotro simultaneously ran a crew of jewel thieves nicknamed the “Hole in the Wall Gang.”
 
For years, these gangsters kept a stranglehold on Sin City’s brightly lit nightspots, skimming millions in cash for their bosses. But the elaborate scheme began to crumble when Rosenthal’s disproportionate ambitions drove him to make mistakes. Spilotro made an error of his own, falling for his partner’s wife, a troubled showgirl named Geri. It would all lead to betrayal, a wide-ranging FBI investigation, multiple convictions, and the end of the Mafia’s longstanding grip on the multibillion-dollar gaming oasis in the midst of the Nevada desert.
 
Casino is a journey into 1970s Las Vegas and a riveting nonfiction account of the world portrayed in the Martin Scorsese film of the same name, starring Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci, and Sharon Stone. A story of adultery, murder, infighting, and revenge, this “fascinating true-crime Mob history” is a high-stakes page-turner (Booklist).

 

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Nicholas Pileggi (b. 1933) began his career as a crime reporter for the Associated Press and New York magazine. He found fame when his familiarity with the members and workings of the Mafia led to his two bestselling nonfiction volumes about organized crime, Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family and Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas, both of which were adapted into award-winning films directed by Martin Scorsese. Pileggi is also involved in film and television. He served as an executive producer for the Ridley Scott film American Gangster and cowrote the pilot for the CBS TV show Vegas. In 1990, he won a BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for his work on Goodfellas.