Casino - Nicholas Pileggi

Casino

By Nicholas Pileggi

  • Release Date: 2016-10-18
  • Genre: True Crime
4 Score: 4 (From 178 Ratings)

Description

The true story behind the Martin Scorsese film: A “riveting . . . account of how organized crime looted the casinos they controlled” (Kirkus Reviews).

Focusing on Chicago bookie Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal and his partner, Anthony Spilotro, and drawing on extensive, in-depth interviews, the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of the Mafia classic Wiseguy—basis for the film Goodfellas—Nicholas Pileggi reveals how the pair worked together to oversee Las Vegas casino operations for the mob. He unearths how Teamster pension funds were used to take control of the Stardust and Tropicana and how Spilotro simultaneously ran a crew of jewel thieves nicknamed the “Hole in the Wall Gang.”
 
For years, these gangsters kept a stranglehold on Sin City’s brightly lit nightspots, skimming millions in cash for their bosses. But the elaborate scheme began to crumble when Rosenthal’s disproportionate ambitions drove him to make mistakes. Spilotro made an error of his own, falling for his partner’s wife, a troubled showgirl named Geri. It would all lead to betrayal, a wide-ranging FBI investigation, multiple convictions, and the end of the Mafia’s longstanding grip on the multibillion-dollar gaming oasis in the midst of the Nevada desert.
 
Casino is a journey into 1970s Las Vegas and a riveting nonfiction account of the world portrayed in the Martin Scorsese film of the same name, starring Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci, and Sharon Stone. A story of adultery, murder, infighting, and revenge, this “fascinating true-crime Mob history” is a high-stakes page-turner (Booklist).

 

Reviews

  • Very close to the movie

    5
    By Steve King (not the author)
    Great book, very close to the movie.
  • Yes!

    4
    By dackonaby
    Great book!
  • Great read

    5
    By jbmorgan99
    Great read
  • If you want details. Good book

    3
    By eazy pool
    I generally liked the book. It has a lot of details that I could not find online but not nearly the amount I was looking for. It is really not an authored book as much as it is just copied of what the main characters say with some added text from the author to maybe clarify something. It’s a very good book and I’m glad I read it. I wish it had was more like the east coast OC books where the details are so fine that I know what the person was eating and where and who shot who with what type of gun.

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