The Money and the Power: The Making of Las Vegas and Its Hold on America

by Sally Denton, Roger Morris

The shadowy past and present of Las Vegas—and its role in the shaping of today's America—are here revealed as never before by two of the country's leading investigative reporters. After five years of intensive research and interviewing, Sally Denton and Roger Morris make clear how and why Las Vegas became the greatest "business success story" of the twentieth century, and how the rest of America ensured this success by contributing capital as well as customers.

Headquarters of a trillion-dollar worldwide empire, the site of unprecedented political and economic power, Las Vegas, in the view of Denton and Morris, is by no means an aberrant sin city. They demonstrate how, on the contrary, it has grown out of, and reflects, a corruption and a worship of money that have crept into American life since Prohibition.

They trace the original funds for the founding of the Las Vegas we know today to nationwide narcotics trafficking. They show how deeply a multiethnic criminal syndicate, in part feeding off gambling profits and the skim in Las Vegas, came to influence American politics and the larger society, and how pervasively its "style of business" has penetrated the entire nation.

Denton and Morris detail the amazing rise and reach of Meyer Lansky—the mind that ran the city; exactly how criminals, politicians, and businessmen worked together to control Las Vegas; the curious interplay of the city with the fates of Joseph, John F., and Robert Kennedy; how Howard Hughes and J. Edgar Hoover vastly intensified the city’s corruption; how Mormon bankers and Wall Street financiers have bankrolled and profited from casinos ruled by organized crime; how a handful of dedicated journalists and law enforcement officers were destroyed before they could expose the city’s secrets.

The Money and the Power is a detailed and illuminating chronicle of an extraordinary place and time—
and a provocative reinterpretation of twentieth-century American history.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Conspiracy Theories, The United States Of America, American, Cities, American History

496 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Gwynneth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a hard, hard book to read. I can understand why so many people ranked it low on various review sites because it shows the nasty underbelly of how the Vegas money machine runs/has run the political process on both the Republican and the Democratic sides for far longer than we ever wanted to know.

Meticulously researched (the Notes section alone takes up probably 20% of the book) Money and Power pulls aside the Oz curtain and shows things most of us don't want to see and/or can't handle. Because, after all, America is supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave, and a place where we as individuals, can make a difference. Where our votes are supposed to make a difference, right?

Not really.

Took me a long time to read this book. I had to keep putting it down and walking away because like most people, it takes time for me to deal with broken illusions. But I'm glad I did. And I'm definitely keeping this book in my library just in case I get swayed again by political rhetoric.

[Kevin Schafer · Rating 4 out of 5]

History of Las Vegas- this book frequently draws the connections between the major players in Vegas, their underworld connections, and their effects on American political life (deleterious, to say the least). The book's jaundiced view is well-warranted but I found the thesis with regards to the mysterious "Syndicate", a multi-ethnic mob-like organization to be a bridge too far. The parts of the book about Howard Hughes are particularly strong and fascinating.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title makes you think the book is about Las Vegas, but it's really about money & power everywhere in America.

The authors posit that the "mob" isn't just gangsters, but also the politicians, judges, and rich people who work with them to bleed the country. They call it "The syndicate".

I'd heard rumors that j edgar Hoover was gay, this book gives details and the consequences.
Also many details about how the 1960 election was stolen.

Every story you ever heard about Joe kennedy being a crook plus many more.

How Lyndon Johnson blackmailed his way onto the 1960 ticket. p. 216

Much about the 63 assassination of kennedy.

How Clinton got his political start from his uncle Raymond's illegal gambling in Hot springs Ark. Another mob backed politician.

And, MUCH MUCH MORE.

This was a can't put it down book for me.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 3 out of 5]

The opening chapters on the founding personalities (or should I say, pathologies) of Vegas were by far the most interesting bits of this book...as afterwards, it became a dreary revelation that the whole of the United States is nothing but a sociopathic crypto-state. This depressed me...and I have no intention of ever visiting Vegas.

[Ron Coulter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Conspiratorial.

[Rick Harsch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Researching Vegas and surrounds for a recent novel this was by far the most informative and compelling book, well-written despite having two authors, and pulling no punches--perhaps because most of the people they would have to fear are buried.

[Franklin Codel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A sweeping narrative of 60 years or so of the trajectory of Las Vegas and the intertwining of politics, business, and crime. The book makes a lot of assertions about criminal activity, bribes, crime, etc. I found the overall narrative to be distressing and one can only lose faith in “the system” after reading the book.

I wish that the authors had done a better job explaining how “the skim” worked and whether it was still prevalent up into the early 2000’s. The authors also imply that there was a lot of drug money laundering going on through LV, but as a reader I didn’t fully grasp how that occurred.

The book is well written and the characters were brought to life. More pictures would have been great.

As someone who has seen LV change a lot in the last 35 years - I can recall playing roulette in the Dunes before it became the Bellagio - I hope that the various practices described in the book have been expunged. But I have my doubts. That said- I love Las Vegas and I agree that it is a reflection of what America is all about including the hopes, dreams, despair, and the facade of the whole place.

[Rock · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I'd done more than skimmed the summary before starting the book, I wouldn't have been surprised that this book is as much about US politics from the 50s through the 80s as it is about Las Vegas or Nevada specifically. One of the more impressive things about the book (in addition to the staggering depth of the research that went into it) is that it manages to mostly thread those topics together.

[Craig · Rating 5 out of 5]

A slow, incinerating burn of a book that traces Vegas’s evolution from a railroad stop into a billion-dollar monster through collusion and corruption. Howard Hughes, Bugsy Siegel, the Mormon Church, the CIA, the casinos, the Kennedys – it reads like Chinatown with footnotes.

This is a political, economic, and criminal history of Las Vegas written as if it were the story of America itself… and it kind of is.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I was reading Whitney Webb’s book One Nation Under Blackmail, she mentioned this book by Sally Denton Having read her previous book Bluegrass Conspiracy, I figured I’d check it out.
The NBA Cup Tournament started around the same time as I started the book. The Semis i& Finals are in Las Vegas This book ends in 2000, since then Sports Betting has exploded into the mainstream.

[Nancy Jurss · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting and well-researched book about the founding of Las Vegas. The author ties together organized crime, politicians, and big corporations in the making of the city. Although some it seems overly dramatic, given the pervasive state of gambling in our society today, it is a chilling reminder of who holds the cards and the money and the power.

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sobering, so scandalous, I would want to read another account about organized crime and government agencies in cahoots.

This book doesn't promote conspiracy theories by any stretch, but its implications make our American ideals somewhat laughable.

[Adam]

So many juicy stories that I have to wonder if they are all true. Something about the book made me doubt some of the aspects, but it's good to know the rumors of the day. Some things we cannot know as they don't generally take good notes during a criminal conspiracy.

[Gary Knapton · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best pieces of narrative journalism I ever read. A real deep dive into a rare topic. Riveting. Fact-crammed and poetically written. The high rollers come to life. And the long con plays on. Very very good book.

[Conor Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel like I need a shower after reading this book. It’s hard not to feel more cynical and even nihilistic by the finish.

[Robb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential reading for anyone interested in criminal or American history

[Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have lived in Las Vegas for one year, and, as I will tell anyone that will listen, I bloody love the place. I have read bits here and there about the city but I thought it was time I read something more comprehensive, so I suggested this for my Las Vegas Non-Fiction book group.

The book is in three sections. The first section is an introduction to the six men who (arguably) have shaped the growth of Las Vegas the most, back in the day. Nobody is perfect, least of all the successful, so these men have done some bad things. Some of them have been punished for it, one of them got an airport named after him. I found this section useful, I am glad I know this information about these famous names now.

The second part is a detailed account of how these movers, shakers, Mafia-members, criminals and the Church of Latter-Day Saints actually did it. They built this crazy city in the middle of nowhere, out of nothing. The third part covers the way American law and government dealt with the result of Las Vegas and its organised crime. It also covers the Vegas of my lifetime – the hotels shooting up through the 80s and 90s, and the story of Steve Wynn, who seems rather interesting, and I would like to read more about him.

I like the mini-biography-ness of this book. I sort of like that the authors genuinely believe that Vegas is at the heart of everything that happened in American history since 1900 or so, and do their best to argue this, however tenuous a person's link is to the city. Personally, I am still working out quite what American-ness is. I really don't think that a nation of any size, let alone one as huge as the US, can have a collective personality. I do not especially like the idea that Sin City and its reputation of being an “adult's Disneyland” is an indication of a nation's moral decay. Many of the vices offered here in Vegas are not the worst things a person can do with their time. The only thing that can be done here, rather than in many other places is the gambling. Sex and drinking and cavorting can be had anywhere on the face of the planet.

Denton and Morris stretch the boundaries of my beliefs a touch in suggesting that everything in the whole of America; law, business, politics, the very “American Dream” itself (whatever that is) is in some way tied to, and grew from, Las Vegas. I don't fully buy this. America is such a young country that all these things were evolving as the city of Las Vegas happened to be developing. No doubt one could write a similar book about Chicago or New York, and these cities' impact on Washington and the running of the country as a whole. But then, I don't live in either of those places, so that book wouldn't have been quite as interesting.

click here to read the rest of my reviews

[Walt · Rating 3 out of 5]

The authors try to connect Las Vegas to every major historical event of the 1950s-1980s in America. There is also an attempt to show how a cabal of increasingly fewer and fewer casino owners, crooked politicians, and organized crime sought to influence national politics. The arguments have weak support and have a difficult time convincing even a sympathetic-minded conspiracy theorist.

Each chapter has references at the end of the book. The references do not refer to specific passages, but generally refer to each chapter. This might account for some of the organization of each chapter.

The book starts out with organized crime and the creation of big casinos in the 1940s. This aspect of the city is well known and documented. The shady world of bank finance is exposed in this book, but it hardly is illegal or unethical to bankroll casino development. The book becomes increasingly difficult to accept and endorse as the authors struggle to connect Howard Hughes to organized crime. They continue along this path by trying to connect Steve Wynn to the Genovese Family of New York by some obscure passage from a Scotland Yard inquiry. Without anything more concrete, the reader should be more sympathetic to Wynn and his lawsuits against publishers. Tangent themes such as the Cuban Revolution, Israel, and the JFK Assassination weaken the book by trying to connect them to casinos.

In support of the the book, the authors disclose the presence of many people who are not generally well-known in connection with Las Vegas, people like Perry Thomas, Paul Laxalt, and Hank Greenspun. The authors do a convincing job at connecting these men to each other and the better-known personalities.

[Seán · Rating 4 out of 5]

An update of Ed Reid's Green Felt Jungle (which still has the superior title, mind). Morris and Denton's book takes a grander sweep of Nevada history than does Reid, and brings us up to the millennium, Steve Wynn, and Harry Reid (no relation, Ed's kids will have you know!).

Sidenote: I have often been told that I mispronounce the name of the 36th state. Usually, I say "Na-va-da" and am admonished with "Na-vad-ah." AND YET! the derivation of the name is the Spanish word for snowy or snowfall, "nevada." Now, I can barely speak English, let alone properly enunciate Spanish words, but my version has got to be closer to the original Spanish than the typical Nevadan's pronunciation. I understand the principles of Anglicization and toponyms, how words and names bestowed by one group take on new, individual, and perhaps truer meaning when later groups muck up the sounding out. (After all, I grew up in the Lower Hudson Valley where every Algonquin or Dutch name has been morphed into something else.) AND YET! I will definitely bring this up at some point with a native Nevadan because I am, say it with me, an idiot.

[Scottie Binions · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I gave this book four stars, that comes with a sort of caveat.

The authors at times, seem to exaggerate and try to drive home their point that Las Vegas is and was the center of the universe (yes, its hyperbole on my part, similar to the way this book is written). The history covered is thorough, well researched and doesn't hold back on some of the details. However, the context in which the authors seemingly attempt to find meaning in everything leads to some broad brush strokes that make things that happened larger than life.

If you are interested in the history of Las Vegas, including the ties to the mafia and crime, this is a good book to read. Once you get through the Op/Ed stuff the authors lay out, its is very informative. I took the opinions with a grain of salt, instead focusing on the history while drawing my own conclusions as to the meaning of such events

[AngelaGay Kinkead · Rating 3 out of 5]

After a trip to Las Vegas last year, I've become interested in its history and the cast of characters that have contributed to its various facets. Casinos, hotels, the mob, air-conditioning, the LDS Church, politicians, etc. Learned more about the connections to government, the Kennedys, FBI and J. Edgar Hoover.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much more focused on the national political connections of Vegas to the United States, and how gambling money has influenced political decisions. Continuously hints at illicit ties of organized crime to Las Vegas, but without a lot of supporting evidence. Not much on the actual development of the companies and casinos, or really Vegas itself.

[Curtis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dense, thorough, fascinating read -- a sobering and undeniable case for how imbedded corruption is and has been in American government since at least the dawn of...Las Vegas. Shocking complicity by the Mormon Church adds to the sense of hypocrisy on efeels about them these days.

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fascinating look at the creation of Las Vegas and the effect his city has had on the world throughout the 20th century. Reading this book will make you look at th world of gambling, politics and crime differently.
Great book.

[Francis Coulombe]

Bon livre qui raconte une histoire de Las vegas où s'entremelent politique et criminalité.

[T Sunclades · Rating 1 out of 5]

The sourcing of the information gets in the way of the story at every possible point.

The worst construction of a narrative thread based on true events.

[Jane Lamine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb book