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I will be going the week of april 23rd, interested in how much money they poured into this thing.

It cost approximately $42 million and is being funded through all kind of grants. On the board of directors is the (ex)mayor of Vegas and former lawyer of Tony Spilotro; Oscar Goodman.
They should have some great items there on display like the Anastasia barber chair, Siegels car and they even rebuilded the wall of the St. Valentines massacre with the original bricks...what a work.
The museum is located in the federal building where in the 50s some of the Kefauver Committee hearings on organized crime were held.
This year I am planning also to go there. However I am located in the Netherlands and would like to combine it with NY and the mob tour over there and with a visit to a friend of mine.

for those interested check out;
http://themobmuseum.org/

If I'm going back to the States one day I will definitely want to visit this place. I obviously want to visit Las Vegas anyway.

Has anyone been? Any reports on how it was? Looks great.

All the times I've been in vegas and I never went. Hopefully I'm going in May. If I do, I'll go by there and take a bunch of pics for you guys.

edit: only if it's close to the casinos, though. lol

Haha legend. Would be cool! You might not have any money left to go to the Mueseum though if you're anything like me!

I heard Antoinette Giancana (Sam Giancana's daughter) interviewed on WGN Radio this morning talking about the Vegas Mob Museums. I'm somewhat unclear on this because I didn't get to hear everything she was saying but I guess there are two mob museums in Vegas. The one she was involved with and another one the mayor of Vegas is operating. Any way, she quit her involvement/support because she says she never got paid. As soon as WGN uploads this morning's podcast, I will post the link to that segment. I am anxious to hear the whole interview uninterrupted. BTW - not sure if it is sour grapes but she recommends the mayor's museum over the other one that went into bankruptcy. She says he is a true historian and got it right.

http://www.wgnradio.com/shows/brandmeier/wgnam-brandmeier-morning-seven-hour-toni-giancana-daughter-of-the-godfather-of-chicago-022312,0,392229.mp3file

They just uploaded the podcast... enjoy!

Thanks, Mark.

You are more than welcome! I saw the website and it looks like a place I would love to go see some time.

YEah there are/were two.

There was one that opened last year at the Tropicana, that was the one Giancana was involved with. They filed for bankruptcy late last year, and I'm not sure if it's still open.

The Museum of Law Enforcement and ORganized Crime, a.k.a. The Mob Museum, opened two weeks ago on Feb 14. That's the one that cost $42 million.

Went to Vegas in 2010, museum wasn't open yet.

But then again, i didn't go to Vegas for the museums .

Found an interesting article that was published in The Las Vegas Sun:

Was life really better when the Mob ruled Las Vegas?

By J. Patrick Coolican
Monday, Feb. 20, 2012


Things were better when the Mob ran this town. We hear this often enough to make it almost a cliché, and with last week’s opening of the Mob Museum, er, the National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, it seems like an argument worth examining.

Here are the commonly heard supporting statements:

The old guys were part of the community

“They wanted to be engaged in the community because they came to a place that allowed them to operate legally, and they appreciated that,” Mike Sloan, gaming lawyer and ultimate old-timer, told me.

Now, many of our casino executives live elsewhere or spend half their time globe-trotting. By contrast, the old-time operators lived here, and you might run into them at the country club, coffee shop, church or synagogue. America has always had a fascination with outlaws, and Las Vegas residents got to live among them. “They certainly were more colorful people,” Sloan said, employing his rich skill with a euphemism.

And, they gave back. Moe Dalitz and partners famously built, with a Teamsters loan, Sunrise Hospital. Nevada historian Michael Green also noted Dalitz gave UNLV money for the first furniture in the first building. Sloan recalled stories of casino operators generously paying hospital bills for the sick children of employees. (I should note, of course, that many casino operators in old Vegas were not Mob-connected, and those that were unfairly tarnished the entire city.)

Better schools, less crime, less traffic

Perhaps true, but not because the Mob was invested in good government. Educational challenges, crime and traffic are the result — at least in part — of growth, not Mob-free corporate ownership of hotels. Of course, you could argue that once corporations were allowed to own casinos, they would bring massive capital to bear, which would lead to bigger resorts and therefore rapid population growth. But really, growth vs. no growth is a different argument.

Also, think of the extreme irony of claiming there was less crime when the Mob ran the town. “They were out doing burglaries!” Green quipped, referring to the “Hole in the Wall Gang.”

As I learned at the museum, which opened Valentine’s Day on Stewart Avenue downtown, the skim at the Stardust was $7 million per year; at the Flamingo, it was $36 million from 1960 to 1967; at the Tropicana it was $150,000 per month. That money was stolen from the community and sent to criminal gangs back East.

(Given the events of the past few years, I can appreciate that, for many people, banks vs. organized crime is a close call.)

Cheaper food, better shows, and you could make a good living

As Sloan notes, cocktail waitresses, bartenders and maître d’s made great money in Mob days, in part because the IRS wasn’t as rigorous about collecting taxes on tips. The casinos didn’t have to report when someone won a big jackpot, and let’s remember that there was no competition from Atlantic City or anywhere else.

As for the food? If you look hard, you can still find a $7 prime rib dinner, though I’m not sure why you would. Our food these days is more expensive, but it’s also far better.

Finally, yes, I would love to see Frank Sinatra. And I would take Sinatra over any show currently in Vegas. But so what? I would take Frank Sinatra over any performer at any time in the history of the planet. Unfortunately, he’s dead, so it’s a little unfair to say we had it better when Sinatra was here. Of course we did. The human race had it better when he was alive.

But our entertainment lineup here is rich and getting more diverse.

Green summed it all up: “In some ways it was better. In some ways it was worse. But there’s too much mythology” about the past.

In any case, the question is academic. As Oscar Goodman said at the museum this week when asked who won the war between law enforcement and the Mob, “Who won? There ain’t no Mob.”

Indeed, all we have now is the Mob Museum, a remarkably restored neo-classical building with impressive historical artifacts inside that detail Las Vegas’ gangster past.

But if it’s in a museum, that usually means it’s dead.



Moe Sedway plays Farabank (Old Tiger) at the Golden Nugget Casino. Sedway was a known associate and lieutenant for mobster Meyer Lansky.





Moe Dalitz (on the left) with Elvis, Juliette Prowse, and Dalitz’s Desert Inn front-man, Wilbur Clark