The Black Book and the Mob: The Untold Story of the Control of Nevada's Casinos

Abstract

Titus reviews "The Black Book and the Mob: The Untold Story of the Control of Nevada's Casinos" by Ronald A. Farrell and Carole Case.

The Black Book and the Mob: The Untold Story of the Control of Nevada's Casinos. By Ronald A. Farrell and Carole Case. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995. xiv, 286 pp. Cloth, $44.00, ISBN 0-233-14750-9. Paper, $17.95, IBN 0-233-14754-1.)

Coming on the heels of the much publicized movie Casino, this volume on Nevada's Black Book, complete with photographs of unsavory characters and pages of titillating courtroom quotations, is sure to attract the attention of Mafia aficionados everywhere. As defined by the authors, criminologists who claim to have risked their safety in order to conduct this study, the Black Book is a list of persons excluded from casinos in Nevada because of their perceived threat to the public image of gaming. Many of the forty-five names on that list are Italian and reputed members of the mob. Their fascinating stories make up the major portion of this work.

Beginning with the generally accepted premise that the Black Book serves to affirm the legitimacy of gaming and to enhance the efficacy of the state's regulatory body in controlling organized crime in the industry, the book chronicles the specific crises that have occurred in the history of legalized gaming in Nevada and discusses the individuals who were entered in the Black Book following or concurrent with each crisis: for example, the threat of federal intervention in the 1950s because of the notoriety of syndicate figures competing for stakes within the industry; the federal indictments for skimming in the seventies; the disclosure of mob-connected union loans to casinos in the eighties; and the internal regulatory corruption of the nineties. During each period, names were added to the Black Book, for "without public confidence that the state has effectively eliminated crime and corruption from gaming, the probable outcomes would be declining patronage, federal intervention, and a loss of state revenue."

This heretofore untold history of Nevada's Black Book is well documented and makes a timely contribution to the growing body of literature on the implications of legalized gaming. The appendixes, in which is compiled little-known information about the members of the Black Book, are also valuable resources.

Unfortunately, the authors go on to attempt to place the Black Book within the theory of deviance control. Their framework seems fairly applicable until they postulate that the Black Book "serves to illustrate patterns of dominance and subordination in Nevada," arguing that the high percentage of Italians in the book results: from an anti-Northeast and -Midwest bias felt by home-grown state regulators, many of whom have been Mormon. This spurious leap ignores the disproportionate number of very powerful Italian state legislators who served during this period (Speaker Joe Dini, Speaker Robert Barengo, Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, Senator Vergil Ghetto) and some extremely influential Italian families in Nevada (Avansino, Tiberti, Isola). It also fails to explain a similar ethnic pattern found among the entries on New Jersey's excluded persons list, where Mormons do not dominate and surely no anti-Northeast bias exists. Finally, it minimizes the extensive criminal records of the Italians in the book, such as Anthony Spilotto, Louis Dragna, and Marshal Caifano, suggesting that ethnicity is a greater factor than behavior in their inclusion. Clearly Nevada's Black Book, designed as a symbolic tool for cleaning out the mob, has a number of Italian names in it; but to argue this is a reflection of ethnic bias shows the naivete of newcomers trying too hard to cloak their fascination with a "hot topic" in theoretical garb.