Source:Crime Time Stories talking about the Frank Lefty Rosenthal Story. Actor Robert De Niro played him in Martin Scorsese’s Casino, from 1995.

Source:The New Democrat

“Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal was a professional sports bettor who was the mob’s man in Vegas and ran their casino operations alongside his friend Tony “The Ant” Spilotro. The 1995 Martin Scorsese film Casino is based on his career in Las Vegas.”

From Crime Time Stories

You know it’s a slow news day when I’m blogging about anything to do with true crime, including organized crime. Not that I don’t enjoy blogging about these issues, because I’m fascinated by them as a true crime enthusiast, but it’s a small part of this blog. That’s all.

If you are familiar with Martin Scorsese’s Casino from 1995, you know about the Frank Lefty Rosenthal story fairly well. This is about the Chicago gambling/organized crime faction of the modern Las Vegas that you see today, perhaps minus the organized crime.

In the 1970s you had a group of Chicago Italian mobsters, as well as gamblers of multiple ethnic backgrounds, deciding to go to Las Vegas, after essentially being kicked out of other major cities like Chicago, Miami, etc, because these gamblers were either mobsters themselves, like Anthony Spilotro, as well as professional gamblers like Frank Rosenthal, who had organized crime connections.

And whatever you think of organized gambling and organized crime in general, the fact is Las Vegas is not the entertainment mecca that it is today, has been since the 1970s, at least, without the Ben Siegels’s, Jimmy Hoffa’s, Frank Rosenthal’s, as well as all the other legitimate businesspeople and entertainers that it’s had over the years.