The Mob Museum in Las Vegas is celebrating 90 years of legal gambling in the Silver State with a two-part speaker series on the mobsters and others who built the casino industry.
“Wide Open: 90 Years of Legal Gambling in Nevada” begins March 11 at 7 pm in the museum’s historic courtroom. The first night’s speakers are Geoff Schumacher, the museum’s vice president of exhibits and programs, and UNLV associate history professor Michael Green.
The second event is March 25, featuring author David G. Schwartz, a professor and vice provost for faculty affairs at UNLV, and former MGM Resorts executive Alan Feldman. Feldman also is distinguished fellow in responsible gaming at UNLV’s International Gaming Institute.
The March 11 event will “chart the gambling industry’s rise from legalization in 1931 through the Mob-controlled golden age of the 1950s,” according to the museum website.
The second portion will examine the industry’s growth from the 1960s through the megaresort era that hit its stride in the 1990s.