Las Vegas has always been associated with the mob. The association between Las Vegas and the mob started due to the “Great Migration” which traveled through Ellis Island from 1880 to 1924. This migration was made up of Slavic Jews and Italians moving to eastern cities. Because of discrimination, many of the people who migrated to the eastern cities could only get low-paying jobs. As a result many of them turned to gambling and became mobsters. A friend of mobster Al Capone’s, Frank Detra opened the first casino on the strip. Jewish mobster Benjamin Seigel moved to Las Vegas and took over the town’s horse racing bets in the 1940s. Seigel’s partners in crime was his childhood friend Moe Sedway and Meyer Lansky. Together, the two took control of the El Cortez casino and set up illegal gambling operations in downtown Las Vegas. Eventually the majority of the hotel casinos in Las Vegas had a connection to Lansky and the rest of the mob, in one way or another. In 1971 mobster Anthony Spilotro moved to Vegas and opened a gift shop in the Circus Circus Casino. He was quickly blacklisted by state regulators because he allegedly committed 20 murders.
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