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Something for Your Money: A History of Las Vegas Casinos
Las Vegas has been a gambling town since its 1905 founding. Its gambling halls, casino hotels, and resorts made it first a local curiosity, then a national obsession, and finally a global destination. The modern American casino resort was born on a lonely stretch of road that, within a decade, would become known as the Las Vegas Strip. This was a place where America could cut loose, enjoying pleasures denied at home. As visitors flocked to Las Vegas, casinos became a business and then an industry. Today, with casino gambling widely proliferated, Las Vegas still is the pinnacle of American gambling, be it on slot machines, blackjack, sports betting, or poker.
This book shares stories about how Las Vegas became—and stayed—America’s gambling capital, focusing on the casinos that made it famous and the hustlers, gangsters, number-crunchers, and dreamers who made them. Those who fought against Las Vegas show up as the senator whose campaign against legal gambling magnificently backfired, or the pair of muckrakers who made Las Vegas seem more tantalizing than ever before—and gave the town its defining myth.
The dusty gambling halls of the city’s earliest years seem to have little in common with the megaresorts that line Las Vegas Boulevard today, but they share an ethos summed up by pioneer gambler Jim “Something for your money.” It’s a vague promise that leaves everything to the imagination—perfect for a town that always thought big. From his Arizona Club to the sawdust joints of 1930s Fremont Street, from the birth of the Strip with the El Rancho Vegas to the fabulous, fated Flamingo, all the way through the glory years of the Sands and the imperial drama of Caesars Palace, casinos always offered something that couldn’t be found elsewhere. Since the advent of corporate ownership in the 1970s, the story has gotten more interesting as casinos weathered three recessions and a pandemic, emerging stronger than ever.
On Fremont Street, along the Strip, in neighborhoods around the valley, casinos transformed Las Vegas. Written by the author of several other Las Vegas casino history books, including Grandissimo, At the Sands, and Roll the Bones, Something for Your Money shows how this very American business blossomed in its desert oasis.
This book shares stories about how Las Vegas became—and stayed—America’s gambling capital, focusing on the casinos that made it famous and the hustlers, gangsters, number-crunchers, and dreamers who made them. Those who fought against Las Vegas show up as the senator whose campaign against legal gambling magnificently backfired, or the pair of muckrakers who made Las Vegas seem more tantalizing than ever before—and gave the town its defining myth.
The dusty gambling halls of the city’s earliest years seem to have little in common with the megaresorts that line Las Vegas Boulevard today, but they share an ethos summed up by pioneer gambler Jim “Something for your money.” It’s a vague promise that leaves everything to the imagination—perfect for a town that always thought big. From his Arizona Club to the sawdust joints of 1930s Fremont Street, from the birth of the Strip with the El Rancho Vegas to the fabulous, fated Flamingo, all the way through the glory years of the Sands and the imperial drama of Caesars Palace, casinos always offered something that couldn’t be found elsewhere. Since the advent of corporate ownership in the 1970s, the story has gotten more interesting as casinos weathered three recessions and a pandemic, emerging stronger than ever.
On Fremont Street, along the Strip, in neighborhoods around the valley, casinos transformed Las Vegas. Written by the author of several other Las Vegas casino history books, including Grandissimo, At the Sands, and Roll the Bones, Something for Your Money shows how this very American business blossomed in its desert oasis.
430 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 6, 2025
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18 people want to read
About the author
David Schwartz
118 books4 followersVarious authors called David Schwartz
For the comic books writer see David B. Schwartz.
For the comic books writer see David B. Schwartz.
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July 13, 2025
Nothing too ground breaking here, but overall a good read if you are interested in the history of Las Vegas - more specifically, the Casinos of Las Vegas. With a timeline that stretches right up to 2022/2023 (the Fountainbleu is covered, as is the Mirage closing and being converted into the Hard Rock) the book covers most of the major properties on the strip, some downtown and even some locals casinos. It gives an overview of each within a historical context, the figures involved, any ownership changes, ups-and-downs, while at the same time giving you a peek at the economics of Las Vegas. One chapter in particular covering the closing of the Riviera really pinpoints how people often reflect on how they miss the Las Vegas of old (you can often hear statements like "this town was better when the mob ran it") but don't put their money where their nostalgia is choosing to bypass fading properties for the newer, higher-end resorts, their amenities and the bigger, bolder more expensive concerts and restaurants that come with them.
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