Bugsy Siegel: The Gangster Who Built Las Vegas
Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel — he hated the nickname; people used it behind his back — was the most visionary gangster in American history. He grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan with Meyer Lansky, formed a partnership that lasted decades, and eventually found himself in Los Angeles in the early 1940s managing the mob's West Coast operations. What he saw in the Nevada desert outside a small railroad town called Las Vegas was something nobody else had seen: a legal gambling jurisdiction within driving distance of the largest entertainment market in the country, ready to be turned into something that had never existed before. The Flamingo Hotel was his vision. His murder was the mob's investment protection. The Strip that rose after him was his legacy.
The Early Years: Murder Inc. and the Lower East Side
Siegel was born in 1906 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and met Meyer Lansky on the Lower East Side around 1918. Their teenage partnership in extortion and theft evolved, through Lucky Luciano's organization of American organized crime in 1931, into a more formal relationship with the National Crime Syndicate. Siegel was the muscle to Lansky's management — the man who could be sent to handle problems that required violence rather than negotiation.
He was associated with Murder Inc. — the organized crime enforcement arm run by Louis "Lepke" Buchalter — in the 1930s, though the extent of his personal participation in specific killings has never been fully established. He was indicted for the 1939 murder of Harry Greenberg, a syndicate member believed to be cooperating with authorities, but the charges were eventually dropped when the key witness was killed.
Los Angeles and the West Coast Operations
The National Crime Syndicate sent Siegel to Los Angeles in the early 1940s to manage wire service operations — the race result transmission services that illegal bookmaking required — on the West Coast. Siegel had always been drawn to the glamour and celebrity of the entertainment industry; Los Angeles put him in proximity to the Hollywood community, where his looks, charm, and evident danger made him a fascinating figure to certain circles of the film industry.
Virginia Hill — the courier and associate he met in this period, the model for Ginger in Casino — became his primary romantic partner and, more significantly for history, the conduit through which the Flamingo's construction budget was routed.
The Flamingo: Vision and Disaster
The El Rancho Vegas and the Last Frontier existed in Las Vegas before Siegel — there was already a modest gambling scene in the town. What Siegel proposed was something different: a luxury resort hotel that would attract Hollywood money and the celebrity clientele that the existing properties couldn't reach. The Flamingo Hotel, which he began building in 1945 with syndicate investment, was to be the first property on the Las Vegas Strip that looked like it belonged to the entertainment industry rather than the railroad town it was adjacent to.
The construction was a financial catastrophe. The budget, initially estimated at $1.5 million, expanded to over $6 million — an enormous sum in 1946. Siegel's management of the project was disorganized, the construction team was stealing materials, and Virginia Hill was routing money through Swiss bank accounts in a manner that raised the syndicate's concerns about where the overage was going. The Flamingo opened on December 26, 1946 in an incomplete state to a poor reception. It closed briefly in January 1947 and reopened in March with better results — but by then the syndicate's patience was gone.
The Murder
On June 20, 1947, Siegel was shot nine times through the living room window of Virginia Hill's house at 810 Linden Drive in Beverly Hills. He died immediately. The murder was never officially solved — no charges were ever brought. The most widely accepted account is that the National Crime Syndicate's Commission authorized the killing after concluding that Siegel had stolen money from the Flamingo construction budget.
On the night of his murder, Moe Sedway and Gus Greenbaum walked into the Flamingo Hotel and announced they were taking over operations. The transition had been planned before the shooting.
The Legacy
The Las Vegas Strip that exists today — the most profitable entertainment district in the world — is the direct descendant of the Flamingo Hotel. Every subsequent development on the Strip built on the infrastructure, the concept, and the market that Siegel identified. His vision was correct; his execution was flawed; his successors harvested the results for the next four decades.
Frequently Asked Questions
Did Bugsy Siegel really build Las Vegas?
Siegel did not build Las Vegas from nothing — there were other casinos and hotels there before the Flamingo. What he built was the concept of the Las Vegas Strip as an entertainment destination rather than a gambling outpost. His Flamingo Hotel established the model that every subsequent Strip property followed.
Why was Bugsy Siegel called Bugsy?
Siegel was called "Bugsy" — a slang term for someone who is "bugs," meaning crazy — because of his explosive temper and willingness to engage in violence without apparent fear of consequences. He despised the nickname and anyone who used it to his face risked a severe response.