Desert Inn

He loves it as much as I do, so we're there, I'm thinking, "We're never gonna be in this moment here again.

Let's milk it." I mean, I remember when we were shooting in, in, I got Steve Wynn to give me the Desert Inn in Vegas.

Oh, my God.

And I turned it into the Red Dragon Casino-

So no casino would let us shut down part of the casino.

So I had to find a casino that was closed already, and I wanted it to be very glamorous and very nice, and the only casino was the, was the, um-

...

The entertainment and fun capital of the world.

The grand opening of Wilbur Clark's Desert Inn.

Make a call for crime.

I never got money from any of those people.

That became 90 minutes, then two hours, and they had more than enough stuff to make it even longer.

Public response was so great it was re-aired two more times in the following weeks.

Keep an ear open in this segment for a KENO radio broadcast about the opening of the Desert Inn.

[upbeat music] In the beginning, a pristine community of 2,000 or 3,000 people built from a railroad watering stop in the Great Basin, a few gambling halls, saloons, and bordellos.

They, they would not let...

I mean, they could let some local people have a few points in it, maybe be the front like, you ever heard of Wilbur Clark's Desert Inn? Well, W- Wilbur Clark was a local who, uh, fronted it for the licensing of the mob.

Desert Inn was one of the most grifted up, uh, r- resorts in Las Vegas.

Um, so you actually tr-...

If you tried to, to build a resort with very few exceptions, the mob would shut you down one way or the other.

And, um, uh, that was the Showboat.

They, they, they built the Showboat Hotel, and that was 1954 when they built it.

And crazy enough, uh, and, and it, and when you recently to, uh, say, oh, by the way, uh, Moe Dalitz at the Desert Inn, and Moe Dalitz is a, is a gangster.

And really exciting.

And one day, here comes Moe Dalitz to the door, right? Desert Inn owner, big guy from Cleveland.

And he sits down and he's got about three people with him.

And I asked, came up and said, is there anything I can get for you? And he's kind of looking at me because I was kind of confident.

And of course, you know, promoting boxing matches in Las Vegas is a mobbed up venture.

And he meets Moe Dallas out in Las Vegas, the founder of the Desert Inn Casino.

He becomes a business partner with him.

He invests in various ventures and makes money, loses money, gets indicted three times in the 1960s by Robert Morgenthau, the famous Manhattan prosecutor.

Right.

So the old Desert Inn in Las Vegas stocked a cart with drinks to support their round.

And the rest is history.

Golfers can thank Sinatra and Martin for inventing the drinks cart.