Early in Casino, Joe Peschi says that the bosses met in Kansas City “which was as close as they could get to Las Vegas without getting arrested.” Why is this? Was there a warrant out for them in Nevada? Would they be violating some kind of racketeering law?
Or what?
I would assume there are outstanding warrants for them in Nevada or Las Vegas.
Probably they are in the black book and thus subject to arrest if seen in the casinos. They do not want to be connected to the casinos because of liability and deniability. I believe it is mentioned in the book but it has been a long time since I read it.
I don’t know about the arrest part. For the most part none of those bosses ever came close enough to Vegas to even get in the Black Book. It was all about plausible deniability. They had to use clean middle men. No one with a criminal record could hold a gaming license. For instance Frank Rosenthal (who Ace Rothstein was based on) was himself a middle man but used others to hold the gaming licenses for him. He was later formally banned due to his mob ties.
It’s been a while, but I always thought this was the reason. If there was ever an investigation the bosses could just shrug and go “Casinos? Why, I’ve never even been to Vegas.”
Dictatorial tyrants don’t go out of the country because it would inspire coups from the ambitious ones. They have a security routines and breaking it give assassination opportunities.
The bosses were just guys who worked for the Chicago Outfit. Bosses in their own right in their own territories but the Outfit really ran the show in Vegas. As has been said, they wanted to steer clear of Vegas so as to avoid any scrutiny on their operations out there.