Las Vegas, Nevada is considered to be the gambling capital of the world, hosting some of the best casinos in the US.
Las Vegas is known to be the gambling city of the world and is known for its world class casinos. The famous Flamingo hotel had been built by Bugsy Siegel in 1946 and it soon became an important landmark in the city. After that the resorts and the casinos sprang up all over the city. In the 1960s the slot machines and the video games.
What was once a desolate desert managed to grow to an enormous city, boasting hundreds of gambling establishments and attracting millions of tourists every year.
Even though online gambling is getting more popular, players still come to Vegas with the ambitions of winning big and going home as a millionaire.
The offer of casinos is vast, so it can be a hard task to find the best ones. Through extensive research we’ve come up with our own list of top 10 casinos which you can visit in Las Vegas.
Bear in mind that when visiting these casinos you can indeed play with $5, however, online, a 5 dollar minimum deposit casino is rare so be sure to check out our homepage for that.
1. The Venetian
The Venetian is a stunning casino with incredible architecture. The design for this establishment was inspired by Venice and it can be a truly amazing experience to visit this casino.
They host over 1,000 slot machines, as well as a number of tables which fill up the casino floor. They also host a number of daily poker tournaments which you can join at any time. The casino floor is vast so even at peak hours, you will never feel crowded while playing the games.
2. Caesars Palace
Caesars Palace is known as a high stakes casino, so many high rollers have made it their home over the years.
The casino has a poker room with 16 tables in total, where you can join the daily poker tournaments. They also have a massive offer of slots and other table games, as well as the newest skill games which are designed to attract millennial’s as new prospective customers.
The casino also has a rich entertainment offer of shows, high end restaurants and shopping centers if you need to take your mind off gambling for a while.
3. El Cortez
El Cortez is one of the oldest casinos in Las Vegas, where Ben “Bugsy” Siegel was a part time owner back in the day.
This is a casino which still holds to the old values, so if you want to take a stroll back in time this is the place to go. As far as the games go they have a pretty decent offer, including over 200 penny and nickel slots.
This is also one of the few casinos which still offer single and double deck blackjack. The casino is famous for their low stakes games and their casual atmosphere.
4. South Point Casino
South Point Casino is located at the far end of Vegas Boulevard, meaning that it’s not part of the actual Strip. This makes it perfect for both locals and tourists, offering low prices and lots of advantages.
The casino is best known for its massive slots offer, featuring over 2,400 including an impressive number of progressive slot machines. They also have a great casino floor with over 60 tables, as well as their own Bingo, Poker and Sports Betting rooms.
They also host a number of events for all of their guests who want to take some time off from the casino games and enjoy themselves.
5. Red Rock Casino
Red Rock Casino is well known among tourists and locals alike. They have a massive offer of slot machines, as well as table games, keno, bingo and a poker room.
This casino offers its players smoke-free rooms for those who appreciate playing with a clear head! They are a great establishment which attracts thousands of players who want to try their luck on the casino games.
6. Palms Casino
The Palms was renovated, shedding its old look and has now become one of the trendiest places to hang out in Vegas.
They have over 1,500 slot machines to choose from and claim to have one of the loosest slots in town. This information is reason enough for a crowded casino floor, consisting of locals and tourists alike.
Players can enjoy in a variety of table games, as well as high stakes Texas Hold’Em Poker. If you had enough of the casino games you can always visit some of the bars and restaurants the Palms have in place.
7. The Mirage
The Mirage is a well-known casino among the locals and the tourists which come to Las Vegas. The casino offers its players non-smoking tables, something which is on-demand across all Vegas casinos in recent years.
You can enjoy in a big number of slot machines, table games, as well as poker tournaments. They have a poker room where you can try your luck on several poker variants.
The casino also has a sports betting room, where the results are shown on massive 85’ monitors.
Bugsy Flamingo Las Vegas
8. Golden Nugget
The Golden Nugget is a casino with a tradition which dates back to the 1940s. They managed to keep the vintage appearance, but at the same time offer their players state of the art service.
Their casino floor is filled with slot machines, table games and video poker machines. Players can also try their luck on Keno, Sports Betting and Poker.
Their poker room holds daily tournaments giving you a chance to put your skills to the test against other poker enthusiasts.
9. The Cosmopolitan Casino
Situated on the heart of the Strip the Cosmopolitan is more than just a casino. They have a huge offer of rooms and suites, designed to fit the needs of all guests.
You can enjoy in the great food their restaurants have to offer, as well as the shows which the casinos host on a regular basis.
As far as the casino games go the Cosmopolitan doesn’t disappoint. They have a huge offer of slot and poker machines, as well as table games and a poker room.
10. Bellagio
The Bellagio is a luxury resort and casino with a triple-A five-diamond rating. Their fountains are well known across the world and you will easily find ways to spend your time here even if you’re not a gambler.
Their casino floor is a state of the art gaming heaving where you can play every casino game you want, ranging from slots to poker. You can take part in their no-limit games or simply have fun at the low stakes tables.
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These days, the glitzy resort casinos that define Las Vegas in the minds of millions are largely owned by corporate entities. But despite the progress made by mega companies like Caesars Entertainment and MGM Resorts, the seeds of Sin City were planted by bold entrepreneurs who made their own gamble on the casino gambling industry.
Beginning in the 1940s, these pioneers realized the potential held by a dusty outpost in the Nevada desert by building the Silver State’s first casinos. In the first installment of an ongoing series, we’ll look at the life and times of Bugsy Siegel, the mobster turned manager of The Flamingo, one of the very first casino resorts on the Strip.
Brief Background and Biography of Bugsy Siegel
Long before he became the notorious leader of the Murder Inc. crime syndicate, “Bugsy” was born in 1906 as Benjamin Siegel in a low-income Brooklyn neighborhood. Like many children of European immigrants during that era, Siegel quickly decided to ditch school altogether in favor of joining a street gang.
Siegel’s proficiency with a pistol led him to become a sought-after hitman, a trade he flourished in as the leading figure of Murder Inc. Essentially, when mob families needed a professional killer to do their dirty work, Siegel and his underlings accepted the contracts in exchange for cash and favors.
Siegel’s skills weren’t limited to violence, however, as he also flourished in the murky world of underground gambling. By the mid-1930s, with his Murder Inc. activities bringing down “heat” from major Mafia crime families, Siegel’s boss sent him to Nevada a la Fredo Corleone in “The Godfather.”
His objective in Nevada involved furnishing illegal services by night to members of the work crew constructing the Hoover Dam. Drugs and prostitution reigned supreme, but with legal casinos providing for the workers’ gambling needs, Siegel spotted an opportunity to go legit.
Before he could capitalize on legal casinos in Las Vegas, however, Siegel was dispatched to California to extend the mob’s reach from coast to coast.
Once there, Siegel successfully gained control over the Golden State’s various illegal gambling enterprises in the name his bosses back east, in an ambitious scheme they dubbed the “National Crime Syndicate.”
In 1944, following a brief incarceration on charges of bookmaking and racketeering, Siegel realized that another change of scenery was in order. With that, he picked up stakes and headed to neighboring Nevada to make his biggest gamble yet.
Siegel Takes Over the Flamingo Casino and Starts the Strip
At this time, the beating heart of the Nevada gambling scene was located in downtown Las Vegas along Fremont Street.
Siegel initially sought to stake his claim Downtown by purchasing the El Cortez casino, but local gaming officials used his criminal background to block the acquisition. Forced to adjust on the fly, Siegel expanded the scope of his search to include areas that were technically outside of city limits, and out of the Las Vegas authorities’ jurisdiction.
Other entrepreneurs had the same idea, including a publishing magnate by the name of Billy Wilkerson. In 1945, Wilkerson was hard at work breaking ground on a property he envisioned as the biggest and brightest casino resort in town. Wilkerson’s project was centered on a plot of land a few miles south of Downtown along a largely deserted roadway which eventually became Interstate 15.
At the time though, this undeveloped desert land held nothing but promise, plus a handful of “sawdust joints,” or old-school gambling halls that skimped on the frills players enjoy today.
Wilkerson’s dream was a full-scale resort combining a casino with a hotel tower, swimming pool, golf course, concert hall, and several other amenities previously unheard of in Las Vegas.
Unfortunately for him, those dreams soon drained Wilkerson’s bank account, and he found himself in desperate need of additional funding to the tune of six figures.
Of course, what began as a joint investment quickly turned into the shake down to end all shake downs. Enamored with the Las Vegas lifestyle and its lucrative nature, Siegel strongarmed Wilkerson out of the latter’s share in the casino project.
After naming the joint The Flamingo Hotel and Casino, inspired by a long-legged paramour who loved wearing pink gowns out on the town, Siegel set to work. Soon enough, thanks to investments made by Lansky and the boys back in New York, Siegel was spending exorbitant sums to complete the most glamorous casino in all of Las Vegas.
In December of 1946, having co-opted his partners’ expenditure of $6 million—nearly $80 million in 2020 when adjusted for inflation—The Flamingo finally opened its doors. Siegel had spent the last year promising his mob cohorts a tremendous return on their investment, owing to The Flamingo’s supposed appeal for high rolling “whales.”
Unfortunately for him, a rushed opening ensured that those whales never showed up…
Arrogance and a Bad Attitude Sever Mob Ties
Having spent countless thousands to hire celebrity entertainers, Siegel expected wealthy gamblers from around the Southwest would flock to The Flamingo.
But when the venue held its highly anticipated grand opening, only the casino and lounge were fully functional while the hotel tower was still under construction. Gamblers were greeted by the constant background noise of construction crews, and with nowhere to stay onsite, they inevitably left in favor of staying in downtown casinos where the hotel was operational.
The losses began mounting almost immediately, with The Flamingo’s casino intake failing to make up for the continued cost of hotel construction. Siegel’s temper flared with regularity, and he was even seen berating a family who had the nerve to complain about the noise.
Bugsy Siegel Casino
In his memoirs, fellow East Coast gangster Charles “Lucky” Luciano penned the following indictment issued by Lansky during a meeting of mob figures known as the Havana Conference:
“Bugsy had skimmed this dough from his building budget, and he was sure that Siegel was preparing to skip as well as skim, in case the roof was gonna fall in on him.”
Lansky based his suspicions on a rumor that Siegel’s girlfriend in Las Vegas was secretly funneling major amounts of money to a shielded Swiss bank account.
Whether those rumors were true was beside the point when it came to the mob’s code of “honor.” With Lansky abstaining from the vote, attendees of the Havana Conference voted to issue a contract on Siegel’s life.
Siegel, for his part, attempted to stall in hopes that The Flamingo’s hotel opening would generate the financial windfall he had long promised. After the hotel’s completion in early 1947, his vision for The Flamingo finally began coming to fruition. Well-heeled gamblers showed up from Los Angeles and back east, putting The Flamingo back into the black for the first time.
It was a classic story of “too little, too late” for Siegel, however, as the contract on his life remained in effect.
While enjoying a quiet evening at his home in Beverly Hills, the 41-year-old Siegel was assassinated via multiple gunshot wounds from a military grade machine gun. In an apocryphal tale, Siegel was said to have been shot directly through the eye, but autopsy documents confirm his eye socket actually suffered from exit wounds.
In any event, Siegel’s life and death were used by author Mario Puzo in his book “The Godfather” to create the greedy casino owner character Moe Greene. To this day, mafia aficionados refer to a gunshot through the eye as the “Moe Greene Special.”
Siegel’s Legacy Lives on in Casino Mega-Resorts
While he may not have lived long enough to see The Flamingo flourish, Siegel’s vision for a flashy home for high-rollers lives on today.
After the new ownership group led by fellow mobster Moe Sedway took over, The Flamingo soon became the most profitable casino resort in Sin City. Topline entertainers like Sammy David Jr. and Lena Horne headlined the nightly shows, and Las Vegas’ first property-wide air conditioning system left guests gambling in comfort day and night.
Six years after opening its doors, The Flamingo was followed by a second major casino resort on the Strip when Sahara debuted. Tropicana (1957), Tally-Ho (1963–now known as Planet Hollywood), Caesars Palace (1966), and Circus Circus (1968) eventually rounded out the Strip’s casino lineup modern gamblers know and love.
But without Ben “Bugsy” Siegel betting it all on The Flamingo, the world’s leading casino destination along the Las Vegas Strip may have never existed at all.
Conclusion
Bugsy Steakhouse Las Vegas
The sanitized corporate casinos of the modern era may not like to admit it, but their place in Las Vegas history originated with an uneducated gangster who grew up on the streets of Brooklyn. By realizing that casinos could become all inclusive centers for every form of entertainment—dining, dancing, and hob-knobbing with celebrities—Bugsy Siegel revolutionized the industry.
Bugsy Bar Las Vegas
While he wound up meeting his end in grisly fashion, and never had the pleasure of seeing The Flamingo strut its stuff, Siegel’s conception of a full-scale casino resort remains the template in 2020. And fittingly enough, while competitors from Las Vegas “golden age” have fallen by the wayside, The Flamingo’s bright pink façade still shines brightly amidst the Strip’s skyline.