VEGAS MYTHS BUSTED: Al Capone Bribed Nevada to Legalize Gambling
Posted on: June 22, 2026, 07:21h.
Last updated on: June 22, 2026, 08:11h.
The claim that Chicago crime boss Al Capone bribed Nevada lawmakers to legalize gambling is repeated constantly, but falls apart when you search for a shred of supporting evidence. There isn’t any. Other than a claim made by a self-published book from Capone’s grandniece, there isn’t a document, a newspaper item, a stray FBI note. Anything.
If Capone had really greased palms in Carson City, the Silver State’s capital, someone would have noticed. Nevada in 1931 wasn’t exactly Manhattan. The political class was tiny, the press corps was small, and gossip traveled faster than the trains. Yet the historical record is completely silent on this story.
Nevada legalized gambling on March 19, 1931 because it was broke. Its mining economy collapsed during the Great Depression and its tax revenue had evaporated. Taxing vice was simply easier than taxing unemployed miners.
That’s the whole story. No envelopes. No threats. No Chicago emissaries in fedoras.
Myth Interpreted
Uncle Al Capone: The Untold Story From Inside His Family created this myth decades after all its subjects were already dead. The 2010 book purports to recount stories told to Deirdre Capone by her grandfather, Ralph Capone (Al’s older brother), before his death in 1974.
According to Dierdre’s book, Al and Ralph opened the second legal casino on the Las Vegas Strip, the Pair-O-Dice Club. (The book claims it was the first, but that honor goes to the Red Rooster.)
Because they were under persistent law enforcement scrutiny, the Capone brothers supposedly installed their friend, Frank Detra, as the club’s front man and didn’t leave a paper trail.
“Al and I went out there a few times to help him get started,” Deirdre quotes her grandfather. “We had known Frank since we were kids, and he was always a standup guy. He was a good friend and we felt we could trust him, so we gave him a hundred grand with the understanding that he could keep the first twenty-five thousand dollars of profits each year, and all the profits after that were to be split 50-50 between him and us.”
All reliable sources credit sole ownership of the Pair-O-Dice to Detra and his wife, Angelina, making no mention of Capone financial involvement.
After this story, the book’s author drops the real bombshell, almost as an afterthought…
“Later, in 1930, we helped pay off the most influential people in Nevada to get gambling legalized in the state,” she quotes her grandfather. “Yeah, Al and I were out there before Bugsy even heard of Las Vegas.”
Only, by that time, Al Capone was already under federal investigation for tax evasion. He was indicted in June 1931 and convicted that October. The man was fighting for his freedom in Chicago — where his bootlegging and bookmaking empire was centered — not lobbying a remote western state he had no business interests in and no reason to care about.
Mob-fuscation
Family stories are great for holiday dinners. They are not evidence.
At the time of Uncle Al Capone‘s self-publication, it was derided by multiple Nevada history experts.
“It’s amazing the number of people that now claim they were the visionaries that created Las Vegas,” Robert A. Stoldal, chair of the Nevada State Museum and Historical Society board, told the Tahoe Daily Tribune in 2012, adding that his research “turned up no documentation” supporting the book’s many sensational claims.
Eric Moody, a former curator for the Nevada Historical Society, added: “It’s just rumor and family stories.”
Grains of Truth
Detra really did know Al Capone. He owned an engraved pocket watch gifted to him by the mobster. And there were other Chicago‑connected operators in Nevada before 1931. Bill Graham and Jim McKay ran the Bank Club in Reno, one of the biggest illegal casinos in the state. They had loose ties to Capone’s circle, and they absolutely lobbied for gambling’s legalization — because they stood to make a fortune from it.
So the myth takes real Chicago connections and retrofits a story no one had ever heard before — one that reputable Las Vegas historians all claim is hooey.
Still not convinced? Deirdre’s book also claimed that “no Capone … no member of the Chicago Outfit was involved in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre” of Feb. 14, 1929. Despite overwhelming historical consensus that Capone ordered the infamous hit on Bugs Moran’s North Side Gang, the book claims that “police shot and killed those seven people.”
We’re not necessarily accusing the author of inventing any of the inaccuracies that sully her book. Hardened criminals have a habit of bending the truth to shape their own legacies, even to their loved ones. (Especially to them, actually.)
So, as impressive as a famous last name is, it’s not enough to legitimize claims with no basis in reality.
Look for “Vegas Myths Busted” every Monday on Casino.org. Visit VegasMythsBusted.com to read previously busted Vegas myths. Got a suggestion for a Vegas myth that needs busting? Email corey@casino.org.
No comments yet