Corporations Killed Las Vegas — The City Without Foreplay pg115–116

Colorful companion to my memoir The Incompetent Psychic

Speakeasy 1980

The Vegas Strip of yore—the era of Bugsy in 1947 to Elvis in 1977—was thirty years of free for all.

And then Las Vegas changed quite dramatically. In the late 70s, all the way down the Strip, one by one, different Families were indicted by the state and lost their hotels to forced sales to corporations. An era that could be romanticized like the plantation barbecues of Gone With the Wind (by ignoring the horrors of slavery and forced prostitution) had come to an end. Gone was the generous hospitality and gracious, old world manners of charming, yet dangerous hosts.

Legitimacy took the low road. The Nevada Gaming Commission indictments won the duel at high noon on Main Street with a lucky shot. The victorious money grabbers of corporate culture snatched the smoking pistol, strutted up to the fallen last bastion of the old Wild West, and shot it five more times in the head. And Elvis was only ever to be seen again as an impersonation.

— End of Chapter 5

I had a booth seat down in front to watch Las Vegas transition from being run by ‘families’ to being ruled by corporations. The Tropicana Hotel was the last to fall to the Gaming Commission…