CASINO: FRANK LEFTY ROSENTHAL - The Real Man Behind The Movie

0:01 Frank Lawrence lefty, Rosenthal stared at the reflection of small, orange flames dancing in the defroster vent of his 1981 Cadillac El Dorado. It was October 4th, 1982, and he had just stepped out of the Tony Roma's restaurant on Sahara Avenue, carrying a paper bag of ribs for dinner. As he turned the ignition key, the world didn't just start, it fractured. A concussive blast, described by witnesses as sounding like an atomic bomb, ripped through the chassis, launching the 4 ,000 -pound vehicle three feet into the air.

0:37 Rosenthal, clothes on fire, rolled onto the asphalt of the parking lot while the El Dorado turned into a two -story pillar of black smoke. He survived, miraculously, because of a manufacturing quirk a heavy steel plate General Motors had installed under the driver's seat of that specific model to correct a weight balancing issue. As he lay on the pavement, smelling of burnt polyester and gasoline, the man who had effectively ruled the Las Vegas Strip for the Chicago outfit finally understood that the rules of the game had changed.

1:12 This obsession with control eventually put him on a collision course with the state's power structure. In the 1970s, the Nevada Gaming Commission was chaired by a young, ambitious attorney named Harry Reid. The tension between them wasn't just professional. It was a clash of cultures. Rosenthal viewed the regulators as hypocritical Mormon officials and three blind mice who were standing in the way of his genius. During a televised hearing in 1978, the conflict reached a boiling point. Rosenthal, represented by his lawyer Oscar Goodman, sat across from Reed and the commission in what he called a kangaroo court.

1:52 He didn't just defend his record. He attacked theirs, accusing Reed of being a hypocrite and implying he had sought favors in the past. Reed didn't blink. He led the vote that denied Rosenthal his license and later spearheaded his inclusion in the black book, making him persona non grata in every casino in the state. Rosenthal, unbowed, took his fight to the airwaves, hosting the lefty Rosenthal show from a desk at the Stardust. interviewing icons like Frank Sinatra and Don Rickles while using the platform to publicly berate the gaming board.

2:27 Despite Rosenthal's wealth and power, Jerry would frequently funnel large sums of his money back to Marmor, meeting him in secret hotels. Rosenthal, ever the tactician, eventually hired private investigators to track her. He discovered that the betrayal went deeper than money. Jerry had begun a reckless affair with Anthony, Tony the Ant, Spilatro, the very man the outfit had sent to Vegas to protect Rosenthal's operations.

2:58 Spilatro was the leader of the Hole in the Wall gang, a crew of burglars and safecrackers who earned their name by literally drilling through exterior walls to bypass high -tech alarm systems. While Rosenthal was trying to maintain a veneer of corporate respectability, Spilatro and his crew including his right -hand man, Frank Allotta, were turning the city into a bloodbath. The affair between Jerry and Spolatro broke the one rule that kept the out -fit Vegas operations stable. It turned two childhood friends into bitter rivals.

3:31 When Rosenthal confronted Jerry about the affair, the situation turned violent. She once stood outside their home, waving a chrome -plated handgun, screaming at the man who had given her everything. The spiral was terminal. By 1981, they were divorced. A year later, Jerry was found dead of a drug overdose in a Los Angeles motel lobby, and within weeks, the bomb went off under Rosenthal's Cadillac. The explosion was the final siren for the Old Vegas. Spilatra would eventually be beaten to death and buried in an Indiana cornfield by his own people.

4:09 Rosenthal eventually left the city he had helped build. moving to Florida and living out his days as a sports handicapper, a man who had seen the bottom of the deck and survived the explosion. It was only after his death in 2008 that the final secret was revealed. The man who had run the mob's Vegas empire had been a top -tier FBI informant for decades, the ultimate double -cross in a life built on playing the odds. Share this story with someone who appreciates the dark history of the Las Vegas Strip.

4:43 And that's the way I heard it.