LOST VEGAS: The Riata Casino and the Battle its Owner Lost to the Mob
Posted on: December 12, 2025, 08:21h.
Last updated on: December 12, 2025, 10:00h.
- The Riata was a short-lived establishment on the Vegas Strip in the early 1970s
- Though many internet references to the casino claim its founder stood up to the mob and won, the opposite is true
- The property became the Silver City, which closed for good in 1999
The chauffeur arrived at the hotel at 9 p.m. sharp, as stated, opening the rear door of a late‑model luxury car with tinted windows for Don Fertel. Inside sat a man Fertel had never seen before. The stranger produced a pillowcase and asked him to place it over his head. It wasn’t a suggestion.
Fertel, a Jewish real estate investor from El Paso with five children, had never aspired to be a Las Vegas casino owner. Yet here he was, in dangerously above his head, on his way to meet Anthony “Tony the Ant” Spilotro.
“My dad has this pillowcase over his head, and he’s sweating bullets because all of a sudden he realizes he might be in trouble and he’s going someplace he really doesn’t want to go,” Bruce Fertel, Don’s eldest son, told Casino.org. Bruce, now retired from a printing business in Florida, published “The Front Man” earlier this year, a book about his father’s previously untold and unwanted entanglements with the mob in Las Vegas.
Game of Chance
The elder Fertel’s ownership of the Riata Casino began with a chance encounter in 1970, when he ran into boyhood friend Lou Karras at a Caesars Palace craps table. Karras, then a lieutenant for Sheriff Ralph Lamb, wanted out of law enforcement and into casino riches. He convinced Fertel to bankroll 75% of a new venture to his 25%.
They opened the Riata (Spanish for “lasso”) on July 1, 1973. It offered a western-themed experience with a Tex-Mex restaurant.
“The first few months, it was making money hand over fist,” Bruce said. “The casino was full, the tables were full.”
Then the mob came calling. First up was Moe Dalitz of the Cleveland outfit — former owner of the Desert Inn and Stardust — who offered to become a “silent partner.” Fertel politely declined.
That was the mob’s last offer he could refuse.
“My dad always prided himself on saying he was not going to be a front for the mob,” Bruce said. “And it took me a while to realize, after finishing the book, that he actually ended up being a front for the mob — even though he got the license and financed it himself.”
Mob Rules
The mob didn’t need permission to take over a casino. All it took was installing one of their own as manager. Fertel and Karras, naive amateurs, accepted Sheriff Lamb’s recommendation: John Jenkins.
My dad and his partner, for some reason, were very naive and had no idea how entrenched the mob was in Las Vegas,” Bruce said. “They just had no idea, which is amazing when you look back on it.”
Jenkins brought in dealers and pit bosses he worked with at the Aladdin. Fertel and Karras didn’t realize at the time that the casino was controlled by the Detroit mob. Or that the Riata now was, too.
More and more, though, the receipts were failing to match the crowds.
They used fill slips,” Bruce explained. “If a blackjack table was short of chips, a guard would escort chips from the cage. The dealer signed for a couple thousand, but only half made it to the table. The rest went back to the cage, and the equivalent cash was skimmed.
“This was done up and down the Strip.”
By January 1974, realizing the dangerous situation they had gotten themselves into, Fertel and Karras cast out feelers for a casino buyer on the cheap. For weeks, none bit. Then one did, a pretty big fish at that.
Benny Binion, the outlaw-turned-casino magnate, was thinking of expanding his downtown operation to the Strip. He invited Fertel for a sit-down at the bar at Binion’s Horseshoe. (By then, his partnership with Karras had imploded because Fertel believed that Karras, a former cop and the one who managed the day-to-day, should have realized what was happening right under his nose.)
The meeting was brief. Binion shook hands with Fertel and told him he would study the financials and get back to him within a week.
But someone had gotten to Binion first, Fertel suspected. When a week went by without a word, he called Binion’s secretary and was told that Binion “no longer has any interest.”
Then there was the late-night phone call warning Fertel to get out of town. It came from a man who recited the address of Fertel’s El Paso home and the names of Bruce and his four siblings.
Ant Trap
Through his now-sweaty pillowcase, Fertel could see headlights as the car carried him 45 minutes into the desert. He was suddenly regretting having followed the orders he received not to tell anyone about the meeting or who set it up.
That would be Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal, of course, the inspiration for Robert De Niro’s character in “Casino.” He had heard from an associate that the Riata’s owner wanted to sell.
The fact that an independent casino was operating right across the street from the Stardust, practically on the Chicago outfit’s turf, no doubt never sat well with them anyway.
Fertel’s pillowcase was removed once the car pulled into a derelict roadside diner. Inside, a man sat in a booth, hair slicked back, leather jacket on. Without looking up, he introduced himself as Tony and asked, “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”
Fertel politely declined, then mentioned Rosenthal had said Spilotro might know a buyer. Spilotro bristled.
“Mr. Rosenthal doesn’t always know what he’s talking about,” he snapped. “You really got the wrong guy!”
Then came the tirade, building to a boil not unlike Joe Pesci’s “Casino” character — the one based on Spilotro:
I can’t believe you’re telling me your casino’s losing money. What the fuck do you mean?! You must be the only casino in town that’s not making money! I don’t think you know what the hell you’re doing!”
Fertel realized his life was now in the hands of the madman cursing him out.
After a couple of hours, Spilotro offered to drive Fertel back to the El Morocco, the motel where he was staying. Another ride he knew he couldn’t refuse, it stretched until dawn, mostly in silence, with unexplained stops at random apartments and casinos. Finally, Spilotro delivered his real message:
“Nobody is going to be interested in your casino, so don’t even look for a buyer. Major Riddle is going to end up with your casino.”
Riddle Me This
Riddle, a Chicago associate, had taken over the Dunes in 1956 with Teamsters pension fund loans. He remained its flamboyant owner until his death in 1980.
Only a couple of hours after Spilotro dropped him off, Fertel called the Dunes and made an appointment to meet Riddle. During their meeting, Riddle said he had no interest in buying the Riata.
That wasn’t true. What he had no interest in was paying Fertel for it.
Knowing that no other offer would be forthcoming, Riddle and the Chicago outfit waited until the inevitable bankruptcy filing. The Riata closed in August 1974.
It was only after he returned to El Paso that Fertel learned — from a small article someone mailed him from the Las Vegas Review-Journal — that Riddle had purchased the Riata from the bank and renamed it.
Silver Age
After Riddle died, his estate put the Silver City on the auction block. Circus Circus Enterprises bought it for $30 million a year later. In 1991, it became the Strip’s first casino to ban smoking.
The Silver City closed in 1999 and was demolished in 2004, replaced by a shopping center anchored by a Ross Dress for Less.
Don Fertel never wanted to be a casino boss. He was lured in by a friend, trapped by mob infiltration, and ultimately strong‑armed out by Spilotro and Riddle.
“My dad was a really good guy who was just really naive,” Bruce said, noting that he died at 90 years old in 2018 and was lucky to live that long.
“The messages that Spilotro delivered were usually deadly,” he said.
“Lost Vegas” is an occasional Casino.org series spotlighting Las Vegas’ forgotten history. Click here to read other entries in the series. Think you know a good Vegas story lost to history? Email corey@casino.org.
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