1. Frank Lawrence Rosenthal (June 12, 1929 – October 13, 2008), also known as 'Lefty' Rosenthal, was an American professional sports bettor, former Las Vegas casino executive, and organized crime associate.
2. Rosenthal, a Chicago Mob associate, ran the now-demolished Stardust hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip for Midwestern crime families that received untaxed gambling revenue skimmed from there and other resorts.

Mobster Frank Rosenthal helped build a casino empire — then watched it all slip away in a storm of violence and betrayal.

The film depicts Rosenthal managing casino properties as a front man for the Chicago mob. Rosenthal bought the home at 972 Vegas Valley Drive in 1972, but Burns said it burned down and was replaced.

Bettmann/Contributor/Getty ImagesFrank Rosenthal adjusts his tie while refusing to answer questions before a Senate subcommittee on gambling and racketeering. Washington, D.C. Sept. 7, 1961.

In the 1995 film Casino, director Martin Scorsese and star Robert De Niro gave us the fictional story of Sam “Ace” Rothstein, a mob-affiliated casino operator who always knows just how to manipulate odds and maximize profits on behalf of the murderous gangsters he works with.

But if Rothstein and his violent Las Vegas adventures seem too outrageous to be true, take note that this character was based on Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal, a real-life gambler and gangster every bit the smooth criminal the movie made him out to be.

The Road To Las Vegas

Born in Chicago on June 12, 1929, Frank Rosenthal spent many of his early days at the horse track with his father, who owned several horses, learning everything he could about racing. Moreover, of course, he learned about a crucial part of the sport: gambling.

As he grew older, Rosenthal’s interest in and knowledge of gambling extended beyond horse racing and into other sports like football and baseball. The young gambler learned, as he later said, that “Every pitch. Every swing. Everything had a price.”

By the time he was a young adult, he was heavily involved in the mob-controlled illegal gambling scene in Chicago.

Working for the Chicago Outfit in the mid-1950s, Rosenthal had a talent for setting the perfect odds for sports betting. He manipulated the odds just enough to entice gamblers to bet while also keeping the odds just where they needed to be so that the bookies could be sure that they’d come out ahead no matter what happened.

A whiz with numbers possessed of a Rain Man-like ability to calculate odds, Rosenthal was also a meticulous researcher who would get up early in the morning to study some 40 out-of-town newspapers in order to gather all the information he needed to make the odds just right.

Of course, Rosenthal also wasn’t above taking steps to make sure that he got the results he wanted, and by the early 1960s, he found himself in trouble for fixing games. In 1962, he was convicted of bribing a college basketball player to shave points during a game in North Carolina.

The year before, he’d been dragged in front of a Senate subcommittee on gambling and organized crime due to his now-nationwide underworld reputation as an oddsmaker and match fixer. During the proceedings, he invoked the Fifth Amendment a whopping 38 times, even when asked if he was left-handed — hence his nickname, “Lefty” (some sources claim that the nickname simply comes from his being left-handed).

Around this same time, Frank Rosenthal moved to Miami, where he and other Chicago Outfit members continued to participate in illegal gambling operations and even engage in violent assaults on their rivals. As part of these so-called “bookie wars,” Rosenthal came under suspicion in several bombings of rivals’ buildings and cars.

Feeling the heat — and surely understanding that Sin City was the place to be if you were a big-time gambler — Frank Rosenthal set out for Las Vegas in 1968.

Frank Rosenthal, Casino King

Upon arriving in Las Vegas, Lefty Rosenthal initially ran a betting parlor alongside a boyhood friend from Chicago who acted as his enforcer: Anthony “Tony the Ant” Spilotro (called “Nicky Santoro” and played by Joe Pesci in Casino).

Bettmann/Contributor/Getty ImagesAnthony Spilotro sits in a Las Vegas courtroom in connection with two old homicide cases. 1983.

Spilotro had a long rap sheet filled with violent crimes. In Chicago, he’d long been a killer for his organized crime bosses and authorities believed he may have killed at least 25 people. As the movie depicts, he even once boasted of squeezing a man’s head in a vice until his eyes popped out and then slashing his throat. Unverified and perhaps apocryphal reports still claim that Las Vegas’ murder rate went up by 70 percent after Spilotro arrived in town.

And now this violent killer was in Las Vegas to help the Chicago Outfit keep an eye on their gambling interests, which meant he’d be right by Rosenthal’s side.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KJ7l4gy4oo[/ebed]

Also by Rosenthal’s side was his new bride, Geri McGee (played by Sharon Stone as “Ginger McKenna” in the film, above), a former topless showgirl he’d met not long after moving to town and married in 1969. It was McGee who encouraged Rosenthal — whose betting parlor had come under fire on federal bookmaking charges (ones that he beat on a technicality) — to take a casino job.

So in 1974, Frank Rosenthal began working for the Stardust. Given his talent for gambling and his organized crime connections, he quickly rose through the ranks and was soon running the Stardust and three other casinos, all of them believed to be under the control of the Chicago Outfit.

This meant that each casino needed a squeaky clean frontman that would appear to be running things while Rosenthal was actually the boss behind the scenes. And Rosenthal was often quick to make it clear to such frontmen just who was really in charge.

As Rosenthal told one of his nominal “bosses” in 1974:

“It is about time you become informed of what is going on here and where I am coming from and where you should be… I have been instructed not to tolerate any nonsense from you, nor do I have to listen to what you say, because you are not my boss… When I say you don’t have a choice, I am just not talking of an administrative basis, but I am talking about one involving health. If you interfere with any of the casino operations or try to undermine anything I want to do here, I represent to you that you will never leave this corporation alive.”

And there was indeed plenty of ruthlessness in Rosenthal. As the film depicted (below), his security caught a man cheating and so he ordered them to break his hand with a hammer. “He was part of a crew of professional card cheats, and calling the cops would do nothing to stop them,” Rosenthal said in an interview later. “So we used a rubber mallet… and he became a lefty.”

But as ruthless as he could be, Rosenthal was also as meticulous and sophisticated in his approach as he ever was — and not just in terms of the gambling itself. He hosted a local television show featuring celebrity guests and even counted the blueberries in the kitchen’s muffins to make sure that there were always 10 in each.

Of course, he truly did make his mark in revolutionizing the casino’s gambling operation by moving heavily into sports betting and hiring female dealers. All in all, Frank Rosenthal’s moves helped send the Stardust’s profits soaring.

However, all good things must come to an end — especially when the mob and millions upon millions of dollars are involved.

Frank Rosenthal’s Fall From Grace

While the Stardust was thriving, Frank Rosenthal was having trouble with the authorities.

Though he was secretly running several casinos, he had no official gaming license (his past meant that he surely wouldn’t have been able to get one). And because of this as well as his known contacts in organized crime, the Nevada Gaming Commission was able to bar him from having anything to do with gambling in Las Vegas in 1976.

Meanwhile, authorities indicted Spilotro and a dozen other mobsters who’d been making serious money off of these casinos. What’s more, Rosenthal also found out that Spilotro had been skimming money that even his mob bosses weren’t aware of, causing a falling out between the two old friends (see the film’s dramatization below).

Furthermore, Rosenthal learned that Spilotro had been having an affair with McGee. Though she and Rosenthal had two children together, this infidelity and her drug abuse contributed to their marriage failing in 1980.

Meanwhile, Frank Rosenthal’s whole world was falling apart as authorities continued to interrogate him about his connections with Spilotro and his involvement in all manner of illegal activities that had taken place inside his casinos. He tried repeatedly to get the gaming license that would enable him to freely and legally return to work inside a casino, but was never approved.

Things only got worse in October 1982. Rosenthal left a local restaurant and got into his car. Moments later, it exploded. Rosenthal was thrown from the car, but his life was saved by a metal plate underneath his seat that just happened to be a feature of that particular model and was able to shield him just enough from the bomb’s blast from below. He suffered only minor burns and a few broken ribs.

Authorities never figured out who set the bomb, and Rosenthal always insisted that he never knew either, but most suspect that the mob had done so as a way to get revenge and clean house after the news broke that Rosenthal’s friend, Spilotro, had been skimming mob profits.

Lefty Rosenthal survived, but McGee and Spilotro did not. McGee was found dead in Los Angeles a few weeks after the bombing due to a mysterious collapse that was officially ruled a drug overdose (details remain fuzzy). Spilotro was found beaten to death and buried in an Indiana cornfield in 1986.

But Rosenthal emerged unscathed and took his two children to California and then to Florida, where he worked as a nightclub manager and ran an online betting site before dying in 2008 at the age of 79.

To the end, Rosenthal had mixed opinions about the movie based on his Las Vegas career but felt that it was largely accurate (but insisted that he never funneled casino profits illegally to the mob). And in a sense, that says a lot about the wild life of Frank Rosenthal. After all, how many people could have their life story turned into a hit movie with few, if any, embellishments needed?

After this look at Frank Rosenthal, discover the true story of Henry Hill as well as other real-life Goodfellas like Tommy DeSimone and Jimmy “The Gent” Burke.

Frank 'Lefty' Rosenthal was a mob associate who operated Las Vegas casinos on behalf of the Chicago Outfit bosses in the 1970s. Rosenthal was made famous through actor Robert De Niro's character, Sam 'Ace' Rothstein, in the 1995 movie Casino. The movie told the story of Rosenthal’s close association with Outfit member Anthony 'Ant' Spilotro (represented by Joe Pesci's character Nicholas 'Nicky' Santoro) and their rise together in the Chicago underworld.

Rosenthal and Spilotro both were born in Chicago and grew up around local mobsters. Rosenthal gradually made a name for himself as a sports handicapper and gambling expert. Spilotro came to the attention of Outfit leaders by handling the rough stuff as an enforcer. Both men eventually were assigned to oversee Outfit financial interests in Las Vegas casinos. Rosenthal used his gambling expertise to increase casino revenues and maximize the illegal skim - the siphoning off of a portion of casino revenues before they could be counted and taxed. And Spilotro was the mob heavy in the shadows who kept everyone in line.

The arrangement worked well at first. The casinos operated by Rosenthal became the talk of the town. And Spilotro was able to dominate organized crime in the city. But, over time, friction developed between the two men. Spilotro grew resentful of Rosenthal’s success and high profile in Las Vegas. And Rosenthal became angry with Spilotro for sleeping with Rosenthal's wife and for attracting unnecessary law enforcement scrutiny to their criminal activities. A dispute with the Nevada Gaming Commission eventually forced Rosenthal out of Las Vegas and the casino business.

Nevada exclusion list
entry for Rosenthal

The house of cards would all come down in the 1980s when Outfit leaders were convicted of skimming profits from casinos and sentenced to long prison terms. They dealt with Spilotro by killing him and his brother.

After Rosenthal died in 2008, it was reported that he had been a confidential informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation going back decades. Operating under the codename 'Achilles,' Rosenthal fed the FBI information that was used to make 'a lot of organized crime and skimming cases.' [1]

The full extent of Rosenthal’s cooperation has remained a mystery, but newly released FBI documents show for the first time some of the information he shared with federal agents.

According to the FBI, Rosenthal supplied Intel about many high-profile mob murders, including those of former Outfit boss Samuel Giancana and legendary mobster Johnny Roselli. And he helped law enforcement crack the murder of seven burglars tied to the robbery of Outfit boss Anthony Accardo’s residence.

Murder of Roselli

Johnny Roselli was a longtime La Cosa Nostra member with connections to the Los Angeles Crime Family and the Chicago Outfit going back to the 1930s. He led the mob’s infiltration of Hollywood studios in the 1940s, and he supervised the mob’s interests in Las Vegas in the 1950s. His life took an unexpected turn in the 1960s, when he conspired with the Central Intelligence Agency to kill Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

The available FBI reports don’t indicate if Rosenthal knew Roselli personally, but it seems likely their paths would have crossed in Las Vegas, Chicago or Florida at some point over the years.

By the 1970s, Roselli had fallen on hard times and was borrowing money from his criminal associates to get by. His loose lips were also making his mob superiors uneasy. Testimony he had given before a grand jury investigating mob influence in Las Vegas was used to haul Outfit bosses Paul Ricca and Anthony Accardo into court. [2] And he testified for two hours before the United States Congress about the Mafia’s role in the CIA-backed plots against Castro.

Roselli was found murdered on August 9, 1976, floating in a barrel in Dumfoundling Bay near Miami. He had been stabbed multiple times and strangled with a rope.

Detroit Free Press, March 1977.

According to Rosenthal, Roselli was killed on orders of Outfit top boss Anthony Accardo. [3]

Rosenthal said Roselli had become a 'public source of embarrassment to the LCN,' The murder was allegedly committed by Outfit hitman Frank Schweihs and LCN member Vincent Inserro and two other unidentified individuals. Inserro was Anthony Spilotro’s old mentor in the Outfit.

Two days before the murder, Rosenthal said that Outfit boss Joseph Aiuppa called Schweihs from a public telephone booth in the Chicago-area 'to discuss the Roselli murder.' Rosenthal wasn’t able to provide additional information about the murder.

Schweihs was considered a prime suspect in Roselli’s murder from the start. Originally from Chicago, he had a long criminal record and had acquired a reputation as an Outfit hitman. He was a resident of Florida for some time and had been arrested there a year before Roselli’s murder for attempting to rob a bank. At the time of his arrest in the bank heist, Schweihs was driving a paint truck. This corresponded to 'physical evidence' left later at Roselli’s murder scene. According to the FBI, Roselli’s killers 'may have had access to automotive related business.'

Over the years, the FBI received numerous tips from underworld informants about Roselli’s murder but none of them led to an arrest. The murder has never been officially solved.

The Blazers

In the 1970s, the Outfit compartmentalized their enforcement arm under a group called the 'Blazers.' The hit squad was headed up by Charles Nicoletti and included hitmen Frank Schweihs, Joseph Lombardo and the Spilotro brothers. [17] These men were responsible for a good percentage of the murders committed by the Outfit during that period.

Other mob murders

Frank Rosenthal identified alleged killers (and the motives in some cases) in the following mob murders:

Edward Buccieri

Killed May 12, 1975, in Las Vegas, Nevada, shot five times in the head in the parking lot of Caesar’s Palace casino.

Buccieri was pressuring casino owner Allen Glick for money. According to Rosenthal, the killing was carried out by Anthony Spilotro, Joey Hansen and Paul Schiro. While Rosenthal told the FBI that Buccieri was targeted at the request of Glick, Glick was never charged with the crime. [4] Hansen from California and Schiro from Arizona were members of Spilotro’s crew. They grew up together in Chicago.

August Maniaci

Killed September 11, 1975, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, shot next to his automobile outside his residence.

Maniaci was a member of the Milwaukee Crime Family. Rosenthal said the hit was ordered by Milwaukee boss Frank Balistrieri, although he didn’t give a motive. Another FBI witness said Maniaci had argued with Balistrieri and his underboss Steve DiSalvo in the days prior to the shooting. Maniaci had been a longtime FBI informant, but there is no evidence that played a part in his death. He was killed by a gun purchased from the same gun store at the same time as the gun used to kill former Outfit boss Samuel Giancana. [5] [6]

Tamara Rand

Killed November 9, 1975, in San Diego, California, shot five times in the head at home.

Rand was seeking an ownership stake in Allen Glick’s casino holdings. According to Rosenthal, the hit was committed by Outfit hitman Harry Aleman and an unidentified individual known only as 'Corky'. [7] Rosenthal told the FBI the murder was carried out at the behest of Glick, but no charges related to this crime were ever filed against Glick. [8] Aleman was a suspect in many other murders in the 1970s. He was sentenced in 1997 to more than a hundred years in prison following conviction for a 1972 shotgun killing of a union official. He died in prison in 2010.

Samuel Giancana

Killed June 19, 1975, in Oak Park, Illinois, shot seven times in the head.

According to information provided to the FBI by Rosenthal, Joseph Aiuppa (mistakenly called 'Frank' in this report), James Torello, Joseph Lombardo and Joseph Amato were 'responsible' for the murder. Rosenthal didn’t say if the men were actually present at the murder, but that seems unlikely given Aiuppa’s age and prominence. It is probable that top boss Anthony Accardo would have had to sign off on the murder.

Charles Nicoletti

Killed March 29, 1977, in Northlake, Illinois, shot three times in the back of the head while sitting in his automobile.

Rosenthal didn’t have solid information about this hit but said he 'feels' it was likely committed by Harry Aleman. This suggests the hit was sanctioned by the Outfit. [9]

Raymond Ryan

Killed October 19, 1977, in Evansville Indiana, bomb detonated as he entered his automobile.

Ryan was a businessman who had testified against Outfit member Marshall Caifano in an extortion case. According to Rosenthal, the hit was carried out by Frank Schweihs on orders of Joseph Aiuppa. [10]

Burgmurs

Killed January, 1978, to April, 1978, in Chicago, Illinois, area.

In the Burgmurs case, the Outfit eliminated seven burglars connected to the robbery of Anthony Accardo’s residence. [11] Rosenthal said the killings were ordered by Accardo. He said the hits were 'organized' by Joseph Aiuppa’s former chauffeur, Gerry Carusiello. Rosenthal’s tip appears to have led investigators to zero in on Carusiello. Telephone records later established that Carusiello had called each murder victim multiple times in the days leading up to their deaths.

Significance of codename 'Achilles'?

In Greek mythology, Achilles was a great warrior who fought in the Trojan War. Achilles died after an arrow pierced his heel, the only vulnerable part of his godlike body. Was the codename a wordplay on Rosenthal’s potential ability to take down the invincible Chicago Outfit like Achilles took down Troy's greatest warrior, Hector?

Rosenthal’s information

The information supplied by Rosenthal about the murders generally corresponded with information law enforcement developed from other sources. Rosenthal told the FBI that his information about the murders was second hand. [12] According to the FBI, the information was 'made accessible to him' because of his close association with Outfit leaders. [13] That doesn’t mean Rosenthal’s information is accurate in all aspects, but it provides a high degree of credibility.

According to the FBI, Rosenthal's information was 'singular in nature and its disclosure outside the FBI would, therefore, seriously jeopardize the safety of [Rosenthal].' [14] There is no doubt he would have been killed had word leaked out about his cooperation.

The only significant claim made by Rosenthal that raises a red flag is pinning the murder of Giancana on Joseph Aiuppa, James Torello, Joseph Lombardo and Joseph Amato.

No one was ever charged in Giancana’s death but it has been generally accepted by law enforcement that the prime suspect was Dominic 'Butch' Blasi. He was Giancana’s closest companion and the last person to see him alive.

How does that square with what Rosenthal said?

A careful reading indicates Rosenthal only claimed that Aiuppa and the others were 'responsible' for Giancana’s death. That could be interpreted to mean they were the driving force behind the murder, but Blasi, or someone else, actually pulled the trigger.

It’s not clear exactly what pushed Rosenthal into the arms of the FBI, but by 1978 at least, Rosenthal was talking. [15] His contacting agent, at one point anyway, was Special Agent Zachary Shelton from the FBI’s Chicago office. [16] Rosenthal’s relationship with formerly close underworld associate Anthony Spilotro had soured bitterly by this point, so that likely had something to do with his actions. Rosenthal probably looked at the odds before him and decided it was his best play.

Notes

Thanks to Richard Warner for referring the writer to the Morrison article linking Frank Rosenthal and 'Achilles.'

1 Morrison, Jane Anne. 'Lefty' Rosenthal was an FBI snitch,'Las Vegas Review-Journal, Oct. 30, 2008. This was the first time Rosenthal’s cooperation was publicly exposed and his codename was revealed.

2 FBI, John Roselli, Los Angeles Office, Nov. 27, 1970, NARA Record No. 124-10289-10008.

3 FBI, Roskil, Miami Office, June 17, 1978, NARA Record No. 124-10356-10272; FBI, Roskil, Miami Office, Dec. 15, 1979, NARA Record No. 124-10356-10216.

4 FBI, Roskil Gangmurs, Miami Office, Feb. 27, 1979, NARA Record No. 124-10356-10302; Nicholas Pileggi, Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985, 180-186. The information about Buccieri and Rand was backed up by a top FBI source in Milwaukee. According to this informant, Milwaukee Crime Family boss Frank Balistrieri, who had an interest in Glick’s casinos, ordered the deaths of Buccieri and Rand to protect the mob skim. The identity of this other source is unclear. Milwaukee Crime Family member informant August Maniaci might have provided information about Buccieri’s murder but he was dead by the time Rand was killed.; FBI, La Cosa Nostra (LCN) Gangland Slayings, E.J. Sharp to Mr. Fehl, Feb. 17, 1977, NARA Record No. 124-10202-10472. According to Los Angeles Crime Family member-informant Frank Bompensiero, Hansen and Schiro were travelling the country committing high-level 'hits' for the mob.

5 FBI, Roskil Gangmurs, Miami Office, Feb. 27, 1979, NARA Record No. 124-10356-10302. Witnesses linked Charles Nicoletti and Paul Schiro to the shooting. The gun was purchased at the Tamiami Gun Shop in Miami.

6 FBI, Roskil, Chicago Office, Oct. 28, 1978, NARA Record No. 124-10356-10285; FBI, Roskil, Miami Office, June 17, 1978, NARA Record No. 124-10356-10272. Erroneous information was later included in subsequent FBI reports that Rosenthal claimed Frank Schweihs killed Maniaci but in fact he never told the FBI that.

7 The name 'Corky' may refer to an Outfit associate nicknamed 'Porky,' who was investigated in connection with the Chicago Family Secrets case but not charged.

Rosenthal Casino Hotel Selb

8 FBI, Roskil Gangmurs, Miami Office, Feb. 27, 1979, NARA Record No. 124-10356-10302.

Stephanie Rosenthal Casino

9 FBI, Roskil Gangmurs, Miami Office, Feb. 27, 1979, NARA Record No. 124-10356-10302.

Stephanie Rosenthal Casino

10 FBI, Roskil Gangmurs, Miami Office, Feb. 27, 1979, NARA Record No. 124-10356-10302.

11 'Burgmurs' was the designation given to the investigation by the FBI. It was an amalgam of 'burglary' and 'murders'.; William F. Roemer, Jr., Accardo: The Genuine Godfather, New York: Donald I. Fine, Inc., 1995. Roemer provides the full story on the murders connected to the burglary of Accardo’s residence. Carusiello was later murdered in attempt by Accardo to cut all ties to the murders.

12 FBI, Roskil, Miami Office, Dec. 15, 1979, NARA Record No. 124-10356-10216; FBI, Frank 'Lefty' Rosenthal, Miami Office, July 12, 1967, NARA Record No. 124-10300-10077. Rosenthal was generally not personally associated with violent behavior but FBI reports indicate in the 1960s that he was the 'guiding force' behind a bombing campaign of rival bookmakers in the Miami-area. It raises some question about his actual involvement in some of the murders connected to his casinos.

Movie Casino Rosenthal

13 FBI, Roskil, Chicago Office, Oct. 28, 1978, NARA Record No. 124-10356-10285; FBI, Roskil, Director’s Office, June 7, 1978, NARA Record No. 124-10356-10270.

14 FBI, Roskil, Director’s Office, June 7, 1978, NARA Record No. 124-10356-10270; FBI, Roskil, Miami Office, June 17, 1978, NARA Record No. 124-10356-10272.

15 FBI, Roskil, Director’s Office, June 7, 1978, NARA Record No. 124-10356-10270. It’s clear from this document that the FBI’s Miami Office was unfamiliar with this informant, suggesting he had just been developed.

Casino Rosenthal

16 FBI, Roskil, Miami Office, Jan. 11, 1979, NARA Record No. 124-10356-10290.

17 FBI, John Aiuppa, Chicago Office, April 20, 1973, NARA Record No. 124-10196-10353.