Gaming in Cuba

by Steve Piccolo

The history of the style and impact Havana’s gaming was a free-for- These measures had scarcely had a of gaming in Cuba has a clearly all - no more regulated than a fair- chance to work, however, when, at defined point of transition. Cuba had ground whose operator subcontracted the end of March 1953, the Saturday gained a reputation as the playground the individual sideshows and stalls. Evening Post ran an expose’ head- of the eastern United States in the The Cuban owners of the city’s night- lined on its cover, “Suckers in 1920’s that continued into the 1930’s clubs were leasing out their gaming Paradise: How Americans Lose Their with evidence of the effects of the rooms - and sometimes even individ- Shirts in Caribbean Gambling Joints.” depression. With the commencement ual games and tables - to just about The author of the article, Lester Velie, of World War II, Cuba as a play- anyone who claimed to have a had been on a thorough tour of ground destination, suffered from the bankroll to risk. Some were serious, Havana’s nightspots. All, he reported, war on the high seas and the lack of professional operators. But had less had succumbed to the operators of commercial shipping which was experience - and less bankroll. The razzle-dazzle, cubolo, and the come- being diverted to the war effort. With come-on games like cubolo were the on games, and must now be consid- the termination of the conflict in result of this. They offered quick ered “bust out” joints - or fraudulent. Europe and soon the ending of hostil- returns on minimal investments. Nor were the traditional casino games ities in the Pacific, Cuba awaited Stories proliferated of gullible above suspicion. only the mending of the American American tourists being cheated by economy to resume its position as the smiling and plausible dealers - some Most dealers in Havana were deal- playground of the Eastern seaboard. Cuban, but many American - who ing blackjack from a hand-held pack, In March 1952, Fulgencio Batista brought the cards and dice to their which was open to manipulation, made himself president of Cuba for table, and who took their money off rather than from a box, which had the second time. Batista, who ruled them as they ate. ‘The President of long been the standard practice in Cuba from 1933 to 1944 made the the Republic,” announced the Havana America. In the length and breadth of mistake of offering his government to Herald on February 10, 1953, “has Havana the reporter could discover the approval of the country in a given definitive instructions to the only two locations where the gam- national election and lost. Batista various police forces to intensify bling was honest. One was the so- resided in Florida for a period of time measures of protection for foreign called “louse ring” underneath the following his democratic defeat. tourists.” It was “unprecedented,” grandstand at the Oriental Park horse Cuba was not doing that badly, in said the newspaper, for the president track, where Cubans gambled with fact, when Batista again seized power to express himself personally on this Cubans for modest stakes. The other in the spring of 1952. Havana had a subject, and he had dispatched the was at the very opposite end of the claim to being the world’s premier minister of the interior on a tour of scale - the Montmartre Club, a luxuri- play city - the Paris of the New Havana’s gaming rooms to look out ous, plush-and-glit, third floor estab- World, swaying to the rhythms of its for fraudulent multidice games like lishment a few blocks away from the rumbas and sambas and mambos, cubolo and razzle-dazzle, a variant on Nacional Hotel in downtown Havana. which it exported to Europe and the theme. The Cuban Tourist The operation of the Montmartre’s America via a dozen white-tuxedoed Commission even had a form printed gaming tables had recently been orchestras, the hottest dance bands which authorized visitors who taken over by Meyer Lansky. The anywhere on earth. The one problem believed that they had been cheated serious high-rollers knew cheating was the gambling. to stop payment on their checks. when they saw it, and there was no

28 CASINO CHIP AND TOKEN NEWS | April · May · June 2004 suggestion of sleight-of-hand or dreams for Cuba had been tested in Meyer Lansky to become his advisor come-on games in the Montmartre southern Nevada beginning with his on gambling reform, and to carry out, Club. To the contrary, thanks to former partner Bugsy Siegel’s ven- on a larger scale, a cleanup job like Meyer Lansky, honestly conducted ture with the Flamingo Hotel. the one he had performed so effec- high-stakes gambling was still alive Following Siegel’s death in 1946, the tively at the racetrack and at the Gran and well in one corner of Havana, at Flamingo’s operation was perfected Casino Nacional in the late 1930’s. least. by others and as additional casinos Lansky might be an outlaw in were established on the strip, their America, but in Cuba he was wel- Batista’s return to power was the action and return on investment was comed as the man who knew how to singularly most influential event in verified. To have “Las Vegas” style put things straight. Cuban gaming as it signals the begin- gaming in not only an unregulated ning of the rise of Cuban casinos to environment but to have the only Fulgencio Batista saw the international reputation and the “regulator”, the government, firmly enhancement of revenues from for- founding of an empire of “Las Vegas” bound by a friendship of mutual ben- eign visitors, and from Americans in style casino action. Meyer Lansky’s efit was ideal. President Batista invited particular, as a major source of future income for Cuba - and for himself. With the development of hotel chains and airline travel in the early 1950’s, tourism was just starting to be seen as an industry in its own right, and the new president enthusiastically endorsed it as a priority of his new regime. One of his first actions was to reorganize the old National Tourism Corporation - “to assist and stimulate private enterprise,” as Batista later wrote.

Cuba’s climate and beaches, its proximity to New York and Miami, “the striking beauty of our women,” and “the traditional hospitality of our people” were all assets that were sadly undeveloped, in the opinion of the new president. He simplified entry regulations so that Americans could spend up to a month in Cuba without needing a visa and could also bring their private cars and boats with them. At Barlovento, to the west of Havana, canals were planned for a marina- housing development, with a view to luring the investment of Floridian boaters who lived in similar develop- ments in Miami and Fort Lauderdale.

And when it came to gambling, it was Batista’s ambition, with the help of Meyer Lansky, to turn Havana into the Monte Carlo of the Caribbean. The first priority was to flush out the

CASINO CHIP AND TOKEN NEWS | April · May · June 2004 29 crooked gambling subcontractors. The only casino operator in Havana for whom Meyer had any respect was Santo Trafficante, Jr., son of the num- bers boss of Tampa, Florida. Trafficante, ten years younger than Meyer, had been operating in Cuba since 1946. Quiet of manner, with a crew cut and spectacles that gave him the air of a college professor, Trafficante went about his business conservatively. Meyer also knew, and had less respect for Norman Rothman, the Sans Souci gaming room operator. Meyer warned Rothman, in so many words, “You run clean, otherwise, you can’t operate,” and the Sans Souci stopped its program of come-on games. But other dishonest croupiers, many of them Americans, continued to operate on a free-lance basis. They had been American embassy was able to close resemblance to the Breakers Hotel in approaching victims away from the its file on the subject. The last com- Palm Beach, whose architect it gaming tables - in restrooms, even - plaint about dishonest Cuban gam- shared, and Lansky’s scheme was to with their card shuffles and dice bling practices dated from the spring take over a wing of the Nacional and games that a sucker “just could not of the previous year, at the same time refurbish it with luxury suites for lose.” On March 30, 1953 - two days as the Saturday Evening Post article, high-stakes players, a deluxe after the Saturday Evening Post and referred to an incident that had Caribbean version of the formula expose’ - Cuban military intelligence happened the previous New Year’s which Las Vegas had been developing arrested thirteen such cardsharps, all Eve. so successfully since the death of American, and immediately deported Benny Siegel. eleven of them. Meyer Lansky’s Montmartre Club remained the premier destination for This idea did not accord with the Cuban gaming opened up for the high rollers. The Montmartre did not habits of Havana’s American colony, winter season of 1954-55 in its have floor shows or ambience to who used the rambling gardens and reformed state. Blackjack everywhere match the under-the -stars nightclubs corridors of the Nacional as some- was dealt from a box, not from the of the garden suburbs, but it did have thing of an expatriate club. A few hand. Floor men became “ladder Lansky’s table crews, and that attract- yards along the Malecon, the sea men,” hoisted up to sit in little jockey ed the best players. It was serious wall, from the U.S. embassy, the seats, atop stepladders, from which gambling for serious gamblers. The Nacional was a cozy and non-com- they could more effectively spot Montmartre was only a few minutes mercial setting for tea and bridge par- sharp practice at the tables - and stroll from the Nacional, the grandest ties, tennis tournaments, and gather- where they could very obviously be hotel in Cuba - or in the entire ings on the Fourth of July. But Batista seen to be making that inspection. Caribbean. Lansky had long nursed a liked Lansky’s casino idea, and since Most important, the nightclubs plan to install a casino in the the Cuban government owned the offered no house room to the opera- Nacional Hotel itself. The hotel stood Nacional, he seized on the project as tors of razzle-dazzle, cubolo, or any imposingly on a rocky bluff looking a chance to show off his dynamic other come-on games. The fairground out across the bay towards the Morro, new tourist policy. In 1955, the had been policed. There were no the ancient and picturesque fortress Nacional was placed under new man- more newspaper stories about tourists guarding the entrance to Havana har- agement. International (later being swindled in Havana, and the bor. Ten stories high and of classic Intercontinental) Hotels, Inc., a sub- design, the Nacional bore a striking sidiary of Pan Am, the principal air

30 CASINO CHIP AND TOKEN NEWS | April · May · June 2004 carrier to Havana, took over the management of the hotel and embarked upon an extensive program of refur- bishing. They did not designate a particular wing of bedrooms for gamblers, but at the northern end of the long entrance hall, inside the curved loggias looking out over the Malecon, an elaborate and luxurious new complex of public rooms was created - a bar, a restaurant, a show- room, and a casino. This complex was sublet by the hotel for a substan- tial rent to a casino operator, and that operator was Meyer Lansky. This became home to Wilbur Clark’s Casino – Havana.

Eartha Kitt was the star of the floor show with which the new Nacional Hotel casino opened for in public. Nor did they socialize pri- Batista was able to cite this law as business in the winter season of vately. Their relationship was strictly the reason why, in a matter of years, 1955-56. It proved an immediate suc- business. Lansky and Batista were, to the number of hotel rooms in Havana cess. Lansky placed his brother Jake all intents and purposes, partners in nearly doubled - from some 3,000 in in charge of the casino floor, and the commercial development of 1952 to nearly 5,500 in 1958. All night after night Jake surveyed the Cuban gambling, but there was noth- these new rooms were modern, luxu- proceedings from his giant ladder to ing so crass as a direct transfer of rious, and air conditioned, and Batista make sure the games were kept clean. funds from one to the other. It made was entitled to take credit for his The Lansky brothers were operating more sense for both sides to operate achievement. By 1958 Cuba was in partnership with a regime which through middlemen, and though the experiencing the booming tourist was corrupt. But they did not allow payoff might sometimes take the form economy that did not come to other that corruption to touch the purity of of cash, it more often involved jobs, corners of the Caribbean for ten years what made them real money - seri- supply contracts, and a whole net- or more. But Hotel Law 2074 was ous, professional gambling. Their work of patronage. also the channel by which the presi- partner, Fulgencio Batista, shared dent could dispense government their professionalism. Flamboyant In 1955, the system reached its money to associates like Meyer and high profile in many respects, the culmination in the promulgation of Lansky, who then made sure that it Cuban president was not, himself, a Hotel Law 2074, by which the Cuban was friends and relatives of the presi- gambling man. He also realized, as government granted tax exemptions dent who profited privately from the clearly as the Lansky’s did, that hav- to “all new hotels, motels, and similar construction and operation of the new ing Cuban officials gathered around establishments providing tourist hotel-casinos that they built. No cus- roulette tables in their caps, uniforms accommodations.” Any hotel with toms duties were levied on the gam- and all the trimmings, would not be more than $1 million of new invest- ing tables and equipment that came in good for anyone’s business. Batista ment, and any new nightclub valued to fill the new casinos, and Cuba’s seldom visited Meyer Lansky’s casi- at $200,000, was entitled to apply for strict labor quota laws were relaxed to nos - in the winter season of 1955-56 a casino license. The government allow foreign croupiers and casino Lansky was operating at both the even announced itself ready, in cer- staff into the country on special two- Nacional and the Montmartre, and tain circumstances, to provide “direct year visas as “technicians.” In the had a piece of another, more modest financial assistance” for the construc- spring of 1956, less than three years club, the Monseigneur - and the two tion of tourists projects it considered after he had been in jail in Saratoga, men were almost never seen together particularly valuable. Meyer Lansky started work, under the

CASINO CHIP AND TOKEN NEWS | April · May · June 2004 31 Tucker, and Morris Kleinman, Meyer’s partners in the Molaska Corporation, were there. So was their Cleveland partner, Thomas “Black Jack” McGinty, along with Wilbur Clark, who fronted the Desert Inn, not far down the strip from the Flamingo. Dalitz and his partners had bought into the Nacional casino, and they were due to take it over entirely when Meyer’s Riviera Hotel got started properly. Benny Binion, the Texas gambler, was one of the few friends of Meyer’s who did come over to check out the prospects for business in Havana. He later explained: “I don’t like operating anywhere that I don’t speak the language.” Younger than Meyer and his generation, but respected for the position he had carved out for himself in Cuba, Santo Trafficante,Jr., was admitted to the inner circle.

Meyer Lansky set his sights high when it came to the construction of his own hotel-casino in Havana. He had had pieces of hotels before - most notably in Benny Seigel’s Flamingo. But the Havana Riviera was Meyer’s own baby.With his past, it was impossible for Meyer Lansky to hope that he could ever get a Nevada gaming license or operate openly in Las Vegas. But now, just over the horizon from Miami, and in an open, legal setting that was more agreeable in many ways than the dusty and remote terms of Hotel Law 2074, on the con- ing a number who had become promi- Nevada desert, he could build a luxu- struction of his own hotel, The nent in Las Vegas. It was not Meyer’s ry, resort hotel-casino which showed Riviera, a twenty-one-story, 440-room style to exploit his special relation- how it should be done. People in the skyscraper, towering above the ship with Batista, but there was not know declared that Meyer Lansky Malecon in Havana. When it opened, much point in a casino operator’s was the dean of American gambling. the Riviera would be the largest pur- coming to Havana in the 1950’s if The Havana Riviera would prove it. pose-built casino-hotel in Cuba - or Meyer Lansky did not like him. anywhere in the world, outside Las Meyer, Jake, and their friends would To construct the Riviera, Lansky Vegas. gather for sandwiches at lunchtime selected Irving Feldman, a builder beside the Nacional’s pool, where who had a dozen hotels and presti- By 1956, Havana had attracted they all had cabanas. The memories gious apartment blocks to his credit many of America’s professional gam- they shared went back more than on Miami Beach. Short, swashbuck- blers from the wide-open era, includ- twenty years. Moe Dalitz, Sam ling, and dynamic, Feldman was a

32 CASINO CHIP AND TOKEN NEWS | April · May · June 2004 Napoleonic figure who had the reputation for bringing high-quality jobs in on time. In his previous life, Feldman was an unashamed gambler and ladies’ man. But when it came to construction, he was all business. He broke ground on the Riviera in January 1957, and eleven months later it was finished. Meyer’s brief for his hotel was that it should contain nothing but the best. The Riviera was the first major building in Havana to have central air conditioning, in con- trast to the new Capri Hotel, complet- ed a few months earlier not far from the Nacional, which had individual box units, rattling and dripping from every window. Cold hissed smoothly and silently into the Riviera’s luxurious room from ceiling vents, and in the sky. But, as ever, Meyer hid his performers that winter included Vic every window had its own view of own participation behind the names Damone, Abbott and Costello, and the the sea. Seen from the air, the two of his partners and associates. The Mexican comedian Cantinflas. Most broad curves of the Riviera swept casino license, for which the hotel satisfying of all, it was even harder to back from the Malecon in the shape paid the Cuban government $25,000 secure a table to eat in the Riviera of a tremendous Y, with cantilevered a year, was held by Eddie Levinson. Room, the hotel’s gourmet restaurant, balconies at every end. In terms of The casino manager was an associate which offered, by general consent, the style and decor, the Riviera was angu- of Levinson’s, Eddie Torres - and the city’s finest fine dining, and steaks of lar and futuristic. Echoing and reflect- Riviera Hotel Corporation itself was a particularly high quality. ing the waters of the Florida straits, headed by the Smith brothers, Ben the hotel was clad in turquoise mosa- and Harry, two Toronto hoteliers with Havana in the winter of 1957-58 ic, while the casino itself, a curved whom Lansky had negotiated the offered the visitor many rare and and windowless pleasure dome cov- Management contract. The only place extravagant experiences. The memo- ered in gold mosaic, nestled on the in which Lansky’s name appeared on ries of visitors to the Riviera Hotel in ground beside it like an enormous, the paperwork was as director of the its heyday are of an ambiance that gilded ostrich egg. The furnishings hotel’s kitchens. was anything but gangsterish. The were by Albert Parvin-Dohrman, gaming in the egg-shaped casino was which was supplying the latest luxury The Riviera Hotel opened with a hushed and reverent, as befitted the hotels in Las Vegas. Modernistic fanfare on the evening of December seriousness of the stakes. A strict chandeliers glittered from the ceilings 10, 1957. Its Copa Room floor show, dress code was enforced. Many men of the casino, restaurant, and public which was carried in part on wore tuxedos. The women wore seri- rooms, like so many convoys of American network television, was ous jewels. The marble halls of winking flying saucers. The overall headed by Ginger Rogers. The Meyer Lansky’s Riviera were an asy- effect did not, perhaps, win prizes for Riviera was universally judged an lum of quiet and gentility, compared taste, but it was undeniably exciting. immense success. Its casino started to the raucous carnival to be found making money from the first night. outside. Everyone in Havana knew that the Its 440 double rooms were booked Riviera was Meyer Lansky’s project. solid through the winter and spring As the Lansky/Batista gaming He sent excited progress reports and season of 1958 and beyond. It took empire gathered influence, it also photographs of the construction back the deployment of several large- gathered notoriety. An article appear- to his son Paul, in Tacoma, as the denomination bills to secure a decent ing in the March 10, 1958 issue of steel skeleton of the main tower rose seat in the Copa Room, where the LIFE magazine indicated that East

CASINO CHIP AND TOKEN NEWS | April · May · June 2004 33 Coast United States mob influence dominated Cuban gaming and that Nevada casinos were supplying the expertise for the operations. The article cited Batista’s 1955 regulation changes as bearing fruit in the form of five major casinos, three nightclubs with another three hotels in progress. The article lists five hotels: the Riviera, Hotel Capri, the Nacional Hotel, the older Comodoro and the Sans Souci. A new Havana Hilton was in the progress of opening and two additional hotels were coming on line. The article also cites a casino at the race track for those who tire of the races. Although not specif- ically mentioned, the nightclubs included the Lefty Clark’s Tropicana and Wilbur Clark’s Casino. Thirteen different syndicates, almost all of them separate from the gamblers already established in Havana, had applied to sublease the new Hilton Hotel’s casino which, it was calculat- ed, should produce about $3 million profit per year. Hilton wanted $1 million annual rental, paid in advance, and Roberto “Chiri” Mendoza was the candidate that the company favored. Mendoza had Batista’s personal blessing, and he was also the candidate favored by the Cuban Hotel and Restaurant Workers Union, which was the owner of the new hotel. The union was financing the project as a source of employment for its current workers and as an investment for their pension fund, Hilton casino, Batista had given the that the flow of money - sheer, naked leasing out the management and word that this one was for the Cubans. profit - was “just unbelievable.” international marketing to Hilton. Thanks to Meyer Lansky’s reputation There were Americans running the Havana had something of a fairy- and connections, it was the Riviera gaming in the Nacional Hotel, the land about it in the winter season of that attracted the most serious, high- Sans Souci, and in the recently January, February, and March, 1958. stakes players - men who thought opened Capri Hotel - where George There were more visitors than ever nothing of writing a check for Raft, the movie star, was acting as before. The operators of the newly $20,000 or $30,000 at the end of an front man and meeter and greeter for opened casino-hotels could hardly evening’s gaming. Who would have a syndicate headed by Santo believe their good fortune. At the thought that by the end of that very Trafficante. Americans had more than Capri, J. “Skip” Shepard, a Miami same year, the “gambling empire” of their fair share of gambling in hotelier who had a twenty year con- Lansky would come crashing down Havana, and when it came to the new tract to operate the hotel, remembers along with the Batista regime.

34 CASINO CHIP AND TOKEN NEWS | April · May · June 2004 so earlier, President out and celebrate. In the early weeks Batista had driven of January 1959, peasants who had secretly to Camp only dared to look wistfully at the Columbia, where he outside of the chrome-and-glass tow- had commandeered ers housing the visiting Americanos three planes at the now strolled with impunity into the neighboring air force lobbies. It was several days before base, filled them life in Havana returned to some sort with his wife, fami- of normality. ly, closest aids, and baggage - and fled One of the first decisions of the the country. Fidel new revolutionary government of Castro and his fol- Cuba in January 1959 was to shut lowers were still in down the casinos and the national lot- Oriente Province, tery. Both were inappropriate to the nearly 500 miles ethics of the new, reformed Cuba. If from the capitol, the country’s tourist business depend- while the Cuban ed on gambling, announced the new army, larger than it prime minister, Miro Cardona, then had ever been, the tourist business would just have to remained generally suffer. Fidel Castro had already pro- loyal to Batista. But claimed from the mountains his inten- afraid for his life, tion of removing the Yankee gang- and concerned to sters who ran the casinos of Havana. make sure of his The realities of government, however, money, the sergeant- soon caused Castro and his ministers stenographer with to think again. At the end of January the engaging smile 1959, several thousand waiters, had chosen to pick croupiers, dealers, and bartenders up his winnings and who had been thrown out of work by to leave the table the closing of the casinos paraded in Early in December 1958, while he could. In reality, very few in protest through the streets of Havana. Fulgencio Batista sent his children’s Batista’s circle were given any notice Castro had delegated the responsibili- passports to the American embassy to of what was happening. Chiri ty for the casinos and the national lot- be stamped with U.S. visas. On Mendoza rocked perceptibly with tery to Pastora Nunez, one of the December 9, President Eisenhower shock when he had heard the news - woman guerrillas who had fought in dispatched a personal emissary to along with everyone else - in the the Sierra Maestra, and at the end of Batista promising unhindered access newly opened Hilton casino in the February 1959, Señorita Nunez sum- to, and asylum in, the dictator’s small hours of January 1. Over at the moned the major casino owners to her Daytona Beach home, providing that Riviera, they had been no better office. “I highly disapprove of the Batista was willing to leave Cuba rap- warned. American consular officers, way you make a living,” she lectured, idly and quietly. Just over a week roused from their beds, struggled with “but we are reconsidering our earlier later, on December 17, 1958, their New Year’s Day hangovers as decision.” Ambassador Earl E.T. Smith repeated they went round the hotels, telling the message more officially. For those American citizens to stay indoors, Money proved to be the final per- who were in the know, there was while compiling lists of visitors’ suader. The casino owners agreed to ample warning that Batista’s days of names in case an evacuation became give their employees seven weeks’ power were numbered. The news necessary. As dawn rose on the sud- back pay for the time they had been reached the central Havana hotels denly Batista-less Havana, there was out of work, and with that assurance, soon after one o’clock in the morning dancing in the streets. The workers at the government rescinded its earlier on New Years Eve, 1958. An hour or the Riviera deserted their jobs to go decree. CASINOS REOPEN IN

CASINO CHIP AND TOKEN NEWS | April · May · June 2004 35 HAVANA, proclaimed the banner “know-how” of the operations for On October 24, 1960, the Gaceta trailing behind a plane which flew up Lansky’s dreamed of “Las Vegas” Oficial de la Republica de Cuba and down Miami Beach in the last style casinos. On New Year’s Day announced the confiscation and week of February 1959. There were 1959, they looked very clever indeed. nationalization of the Havana Riviera about six weeks left until Easter, and, They got themselves clear of Cuban Hotel. The gazette announced the with luck, the Riviera and the other gambling, and they even had a profit same fate for 165 other American hotels could recoup enough of their to show for it. Lansky did not look so enterprises. This marked the end of losses to break even for the season. clever. The Riviera Hotel had cost Lansky’s dream of Las Vegas style Cautious optimism filled the gaming $14 million to build and equip. Six gaming in Cuba. Gaming in Cuba was rooms at the prospect of coexistence million dollars of that investment was growing so fast, that if it weren’t for with a regime that seemed both clean provided by the Batista government the revolution, Las Vegas might not and pragmatic. under the provisions of Hotel Law be what it is today. Reports of gaming 2074. No paperwork survives to pro- in Cuba after the confiscation of all In April 1958, nine months before vide exact figures, but $8 million to the American operated casinos, con- Batista’s departure, when the recently $12 million seems to be a fair esti- sist of casinos operated for the pleas- opened hotels-casinos of Havana mate of what Lansky and his associ- ure of eastern block tourists. were going full swing, the Nevada ates personally invested in the Gaming Board had banned the hold- Riviera’s bricks and mortar, chande- A recently reported joint venture ers of Nevada gaming licenses from liers, roulette tables, and mosaic tile. with French gaming interests in part- operating in Cuba. The spectacular At the time of Batista’s departure, the nership with the Cuban government success of the Havana Riviera, Capri, Riviera Hotel had been open for a as recently as 1991 indicate that the Nacional, and Hilton hotel-casinos few weeks longer than a year, and by operations have labored under the dif- was hurting business in Las Vegas, the estimate of the Hilton’s analysis, ficult problem of having the govern- where the most recently opened who studied the Riviera’s success in ment as a partner. The glorious days hotels were all in financial difficul- order to predict how much revenue of Havana gaming are now more than ties. Five Nevada gamblers had acted their own casino might be expected to 40 years old, but the urge for gam- immediately to safeguard their posi- generate, gaming at the Riviera bling, long a sport in Cuba, continues tions in Las Vegas. In the autumn of showed a clear annual profit of some to run in the blood of the country. The 1958, Moe Dalitz, Wilbur Clark, Sam $3 million. But after little more than a Cuban National Lottery was such a Tucker, Morris Kleinman, and year of operating profits, that still left deeply rooted institution that even Thomas “Black Jack” McGinty all $5 million to $9 million of investment Fidel Castro could not ban its exis- sold out the interests they had devel- paid out and buried in the hotel - with tence and today it serves as an indica- oped in Havana. Cuban gaming now the deficit getting larger, since the tion that Cuba will once again revive rested solely in the hands of Batista, Riviera did not register a single the spirit of gaming if and when its Lansky, and his associates from the month of clear profit in the period government is so inclined. east coast. Nevada’s contribution to that it operated under the unwilling Cuban gaming had been to supply the and unhelpful regime of Fidel Castro.

36 CASINO CHIP AND TOKEN NEWS | April · May · June 2004