Inside Asian Gaming

August 2015 inside asian gaming 31 disastrous experiment known as Prohibition, which also created modern organized crime. Cuba flourished with nightclubs, bordellos and casinos. World War II was a minor interruption. Then the partying was reborn. Havana became so notorious that in 1950 a Broadway musical, “Guys and Dolls,” could be built around its reputation. The audience knew why Nathan Detroit (the Frank Sinatra character in the 1955 film) bet Sky Masterson (Marlon Brando) that Sky could not convince the Salvation Army “doll” (Jean Simmons) to go with him for “dinner in Havana.” But it looked for a while like the good times might be coming to an end. Cuban casinos had become so crooked that Americans were beginning to stay away. They were saved when Fulgencio Batista became dictator in 1952. In an ironic twist, Batista called upon the mob, particularly Meyer Lansky, to clean things up. And they did. It is hard to believe organized crime syndicates would run completely honest games. But Lansky realized they could make more money with magnificent hotel-casinos than if they cheated everyone. Throughout the 1950s, the American and Cuban mob families opened luxurious casino resorts, each one bigger and more successful than the last. The money poured in. Batista got a cut of everything. Three recent books, Offshore Vegas: How the Mob Brought Revolution to Cuba; Havana Before Castro: When Cuba was a Tropical Playground (great photos); and Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba… and Then Lost It to the Revolution, may overstate the importance of organized crime in the Communists coming to power. The economy under Batista was not that bad. Cuba had a large middle class. Lansky was, in fact, originally reluctant to open casinos because labor unions were so strong. Still, most Cubans never shared the wealth they saw all around them, and corruption was rampant. The result was revolution. When news hit the streets on New Year’s Day, 1959, that Batista had fled the country, angry crowds poured into the casinos, destroying everything inside. Cuba’s 1950’s hotels are still standing. More importantly, so are its casinos. Although now dark and empty, nothing else has changed; even the chandeliers are the same. You swear you hear the ghost whispering of long-gone slot machines and crap tables, when you walk around the Riviera casino. Many of the bars and nightclubs are still open. The largest showroom of them all, the Tropicana with its multi-level, outdoor stage, sells out every night. The extravaganza features statuesque showgirls with feathered headdresses and sexy dancing, or at least what would have been considered sexy in 1959. Before the Revolution, Havana competed with Las Vegas and Monte Carlo as the gambling and entertainment capital of the world. Fidel Castro, through his hand-picked provisional president, Manuel Urrutia, closed the casinos immediately after seizing power on 1st January, 1959, just as he canceled the national lottery. But this threw thousands of Cubans out of work. They made their complaints public, marching through the streets in protest. Castro’s own economic advisors told him that the country’s economy would collapse unless the casinos were reopened. Gambling and the law Many of the bars and nightclubs are still open. The largest showroom of them all, the Tropicana with its multi-level, outdoor stage, sells out every night. The extravaganza features statuesque showgirls with feathered headdresses and sexy dancing, or at least what would have been considered sexy in 1959.