The Flamingo is the oldest resort on the Strip, now celebrating 75 years. Its past includes everything from the mafia to Kirk Kerkorian to the decade-long run of Donny and Marie Osmond, and it reflects the Strip’s tumultuous history of murder and mob connections.
Crime families had been involved in owning other casinos in town, but the Flamingo was the first mob-built casino in Las Vegas.
“If you were going to do a history of the Strip and you want to do the life and times of the Flamingo, I think that’s a good way to do it,” said UNLV History Professor Michael Green.
When the Flamingo opened its doors in 1946, the resort’s Miami Beach, Art Deco style contradicted the trend of Old West-themed hotels in Vegas at that time. It was the first real luxury resort on the Strip, setting a precedent for comfort, amenities and entertainment options that remains a part of the Strip’s identity today.
Benjamin ‘Bugsy’ Siegel gets most of the credit for opening the Flamingo, but the idea to build a Miami-beach style hotel in Southern Nevada came from his one-time business partner Billy Wilkerson.
Wilkerson was a successful Los Angeles businessman in the 1930s and 1940s who founded The Hollywood Reporter and owned several popular nightclubs on the famed Sunset Boulevard.
Wilkerson started building the resort in 1945, but by early 1946, the project ran out of money because he had lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in other casinos in town.
That was when Wilkerson pulled Siegel in on the project. Siegel was a longtime bruiser for the mob who had already established himself in the Las Vegas scene through the horserace wire services and investing into other casinos on Fremont Street. Siegel and his associates bought two-thirds of the project and eventually forced Wilkerson out.
The cost of building the resort rose from around $1.2m to an estimated $6m by the time construction was complete.
The Flamingo opened its doors for the first time on December 26, 1946.
“I think it’s just that it’s acknowledging the true history of the Flamingo. It’s an undeniable part of the history, and it’s something that’s unique to Flamingo, and leaning into that and sharing it we thought was appropriate. Certainly not condoning the method of operations, but it is a part of the history of the Flamingo,” said Sean McBurney, President of Regional Oerations for Caesars Entertainment, the current operators of the Flamingo.
