MORE VEGAS NEAR MYTHS: Stories So Wild, They Seem Fake But Aren’t

Posted on: January 6, 2025, 07:55h. 

Last updated on: January 5, 2025, 11:19h.

Corey Levitan Read More

Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Entertainment, Expert Insight, Las Vegas, Restaurants, Las Vegas Myths.

In the nearly three years since we began this weekly Casino.org series, we’ve investigated many wild stories that we knew had to be myths.

Most of the time, we were right. This is how we put to rest such widely held Vegas beliefs as the bodies buried inside Hoover Dam, the casino that Howard Hughes bought just to dim its sign so he could sleep, and, of course, the extra oxygen that casinos pump onto their floors to keep gamblers awake. (Well, we tried putting them to rest, anyway. Many people still believe them.)

However, some such stories end up, quite insanely, being true.

If you missed our first installment, check out “Vegas Near Myths Pt. 1,”

Steve Wynn’s Gangland Roots

In 1971, Steve Wynn was a 29-year-old slot supervisor at the Frontier. But big-time banker E. Parry Thomas took a liking to him. He saw something.

Thomas arranged for Steve Wynn to purchase a narrow strip of land next door to Caesars Palace. It was owned by Howard Hughes, who had been leasing it to the casino resort for parking space, and it was the last piece of property Hughes owned on the Strip.

The parcel measured only 100 feet by 1,500 feet, hardly enough to build anything worthwhile. So Wynn’s $1.2 million purchase price was a gamble. But it paid off because of a giant bluff.

Wynn claimed to be planning a new motel and casino on his finger-like parcel the likes of which Las Vegas had never seen before. And none other than Betty Willis, creator of the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign, was hired to draw the rendering. Wynn called a press conference to unveil it along with his grand plans.

In her 2019 book, “Eyes in the Sky,” author Karen Leslie described Wynn’s concept: “A tongue-in-cheek depiction of a gangster-themed casino, complete with old Packards and cartoon characters in fedoras sporting machine guns, that looks like it came right out of Chicago.”

Wynn fielded press questions as though he were 1,000% serious, even when he uttered its name … Gangland!

Remember, this was still the early 1970s, so the mob was not some marketing technique applied to museums and bus tours to conjure nostalgia for the past. It was very much part of Vegas’ present, and would control the operations at several casinos for almost another decade.

Caesars Palace CEO Bill Weinberger was already beside himself about Wynn’s purchase, since he was under the impression that Hughes had given Caesars first dibs on buying the site. Now, he had even more reason to be angry.

Even if Weinberger knew Wynn was bluffing — and he was a completely new player on the Strip, so there could be knowing that for sure — he just couldn’t take the chance. He could never allow something so offensive to be built next to his luxurious resort — especially something that reminded the public that Caesars Palace itself was built with mafia money (via the Teamsters Pension Fund) in 1966.

On Oct. 27, 1972, Weinberger nearly doubled Wynn’s money, caving into his unbudgeable asking price of $2.25 million.

The young bluffer used his profit to purchase a controlling interest in the then-rundown Golden Nugget Las Vegas. And that’s how Steve Wynn started his Las Vegas empire.

FedEx’s Debt to Vegas Blackjack

FedEx began operations in April 1971, thanks to $4 million founder Fred Smith had inherited from his father. His idea was to create an integrated air and ground delivery system that flew packages from across the country to a single hub, where they would sorted and then flown or driven to their destinations.

But rapidly rising fuel costs took the startup, then known as Federal Express, by surprise. By 1974, it was losing $1 million a month. Bankruptcy seemed the only option.

While waiting for a flight home to Memphis from Chicago, where he was turned down for funding by the board of General Dynamics, Smith impulsively hopped a plane to Vegas.

Here, at a casino that he never identified, he turned the company’s last remaining $5,000 into $27,000 at a blackjack table, and that saved the company.

This initially struck us as a myth. How can $27,000 possibly pull a company out of millions of dollars of debt?

The answer is because Smith used it to pay FedEx’s overdue $24,000 fuel bill. And this allowed the company to continue long enough for Smith to raise another $11 million from its original investors.

The Sinatra Jokes That Nearly Got Jackie Mason Whacked

In November 1966, Jackie Mason appeared at the Aladdin’s supper club with opening act Joe E. Lewis, a crony of Frank Sinatra’s. His act included jokes about the age difference between Frank Sinatra, 50, and his 21-year-old new bride, actress Mia Farrow.

“Frank soaks his dentures and Mia brushes her braces,” Mason said. “Then she takes off her roller skates and puts them next to his cane. He peels off his toupée and she unbraids her hair.”

Hearing about the jokes, probably from Lewis, Sinatra came to see the act with a group of associates and began heckling Mason, calling him a “creep” and a “bum.”

“If you need attention so much, you should be seeing a doctor, not my show,” Mason replied before  the crooner and his cronies stormed out.

Sinatra sent a couple of thugs to Mason’s dressing room to tell him to knock off the wisecracks or else.

Mason didn’t follow their advice. A few nights later, he received an anonymous call warning him to change his tune — if he valued his life.

After another night or two of Sinatra material, three shots were fired through the front door of Mason’s suite at the Aladdin. He was in the bathroom at the time. The bullets were found imbedded in his mattress.

According to Mason, when he reported the incident to Las Vegas police, they refused to investigate.

“I have no idea who it was who tried to shoot me,” Mason said in his act afterward. “After the shots were fired, all I heard was someone singing, ‘Doobie, doobie, doo.’”

Sinatra apparently had the last laugh. On February 13, 1967, a thug wearing brass knuckles shattered Mason’s nose and cheekbone outside his apartment in Miami.

Pall in the Family

The first and last men to die building the Hoover Dam were a father and his son.

Before we began researching this story, it seemed like the surest myth we had ever tackled. But once again, incredibly, the facts checked out.

Before construction on the dam even started, John Gregory Tierney was among surveyors scouting for a construction site up and down the Colorado River. In 1921, Tierney got toppled from the raft in which he rode and drowned in the strong current.

Fourteen years later, Tierney’s son, Patrick, became the final construction fatality on the dam when died falling from the newly completed structure.

And, as if that weren’t bizarre enough, father and son both died on Dec. 20. Their names appear in raised metal on a plaque near the dam.

Look for “Vegas Myths Busted” every Monday on Casino.org. Click here to read previously busted Vegas myths. Got a suggestion for a Vegas myth that needs busting? Email corey@casino.org.