Frank 'Lefty' Rosenthal | US news

Frank 'Lefty' Rosenthal

Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, who has died of a heart attack aged 79, was a Las Vegas legend, a pioneer who brought sports bookmaking into US casinos as a legitimate business, at least by Vegas standards, who introduced female blackjack dealers and immediately doubled business at the tables, and who was the inspiration for the "Ace Rothstein" character played by Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese's 1995 film Casino. But his greatest achievement may have been simply surviving into old age.

Rosenthal owed that good fortune partly to his instincts and partly to a design flaw in the 1981 Cadillac Eldorado. On October 4 1982, a bomb exploded in his car as Rosenthal left Tony Roma's Las Vegas steakhouse with a bag of spare ribs for his children. Only a metal plate placed under the driver's seat to correct the car's imbalance saved his life. He soon took his children and left Las Vegas, first for California and then to Florida, where he managed his nephew's bar and grill and, later, ran a profitable internet betting site.

Rosenthal was born in Chicago, the spiritual home of US gangsters and sports fixers. As a teenager he was already setting odds for bookmakers, whose illegal business was controlled by the mob. He studied the business like any other, but had an innate talent for setting odds that both attracted bets and protected bookies. He was also actively involved in fixing the outcomes of sporting events, and established a reputation for ruthlessly protecting his, and his employers', interests. In 1961, called to testify before a congressional committee, he invoked his fifth amendment protection against self-incrimination 38 times - including when asked if he was left-handed, thus earning his nickname.

The following year he was convicted in North Carolina of trying to bribe college basketball players to "shave" points, and win by less than the bookie's published spread. He moved to Las Vegas in 1968, after being implicated in bombings during the infamous Miami "bookie wars". He soon married a topless showgirl, Geri McGee (later played by Sharon Stone in Casino), and brought his childhood friend Anthony "Tony the Ant" Spilotro to Vegas, as his enforcer. The city's murder rate allegedly went up 70% after Spilotro's arrival. His nickname referred to his stature, which is why Joe Pesci was cast in his role, renamed "Nicky Santoro", in the Casino film.

In 1974, reportedly as a result of his wife's nagging, Rosenthal took a job as floor manager at the Stardust hotel, and soon had an executive position with the company, reputedly a mob front, that owned that casino and three others. He presented a television talk show sponsored by the Stardust; his first guest was, perhaps not surprisingly, Frank Sinatra. In reality he was running all four casinos, but without a licence, and in 1976 the Nevada state gaming commission deemed him unsuitable. Although he won an appeal to a friendly judge, the battle continued until finally, in 1988, he was placed in the "black book" which bars gamblers from casinos. Meanwhile, he fell out with Spilotro, who had begun an affair with McGee, and whose role in skimming large amounts of untraceable casino cash from the mob's own skim had been revealed. Spilotro was also engineering jewellery heists from casino hotels, further irritating the city's powers-that-be.

The question of who tried to blow up Rosenthal remains unanswered. Rosenthal claimed it was due to his association with Spilotro - "once they discovered we were childhood friends there was no way to overcome it" - but his own role in the skim might be a better reason. Or Spilotro himself might have felt his former pal had sold him out. A month later, McGee was found dead in a Los Angeles motel, of an overdose of alcohol and drugs. Soon afterwards, Rosenthal left Las Vegas for good.

When Casino appeared, Rosenthal was quoted as saying, "I'm not Bob [De Niro] and he's not Frank," but in a 2007 interview he conceded that the film was "almost totally accurate ... I raped the strip's casinos." Nicholas Pileggi, who wrote the film and its book, said, "When Lefty went, the new Las Vegas emerged, the corporate Vegas." Indeed, in today's Las Vegas, the mayor, Oscar Goodman, was once Rosenthal's attorney. "I don't believe he ever spent a day in jail when I represented him," he said. "Law enforcement ... probably didn't care for him but he treated me well and paid his bills on time."

Goodman may have understated the case. One former federal prosecutor told a Las Vegas paper that "you should never speak ill of the dead, but Lefty Rosenthal is one of the exceptions. He was an awful human being."

He is survived by Steven and Stephanie, the children of his marriage to McGee.

Frank Lawrence 'Lefty' Rosenthal, gambler and gangster, born June 12 1929; died October 13 2008

· This article was amended on Saturday October 25 2008. When Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal said: "I'm not Bob and he's not Frank," he was talking about himself and Robert De Niro, who played him in the film Casino. He was not, as we suggested in the article above, referring to Frank Sinatra. This has been corrected.

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