Hit Me!: Fighting the Las Vegas Mob by the Numbers

by Danielle Gomes, Jay Bonansinga

Overview

Las Vegas, 1970s—a golden age of Glitter Gulch corruption. Dennis Gomes--the youngest division chief in Gaming Control Board history--whipped a ragtag group of auditors into hardened, gun-slinging investigators, and shattered clichés about milquetoast accountant cops. Coming within a hair’s breadth of death more than once, Gomes capped off his tenure with the famous bust of the Stardust skim, portrayed in the book and movie Casino. In Hit Me!, there’s action to fill a dozen Scorsese films—midnight raids, heart-rending showgirl romances, and deadly double-crosses. And the cast of characters reads like a roll call of gangster lore. But no matter how much evidence Gomes uncovered, or how many witnesses and informants were bloodied, Gomes was swept aside by a political system that was dirty to its core. It took nearly three decades, but in 2007, Gomes made a date with destiny at The Family Secrets Trial--the justice system finally taking out a “hit” on the mob. In a Chicago courtroom on July 30, 2007, Gomes--a key prosecutorial witness--finally settled all scores.
     Dennis Gomes, who passed away in February 2012, will be posthumously inducted into the Gaming Hall of Fame in Las Vegas in October 2012.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780762794324
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	05/07/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Danielle Gomes, daughter of the late Dennis Gomes, who owned and operated Resorts Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, is a freelance writer and filmmaker. She co-wrote and narrated a documentary short on America’s homeless that won a Telly Award and a Videographer’s Award of Excellence. A member of the Association of Writers and Writers Program, she lives in Margate, NJ. Jay Bonansinga is the author of Pinkerton’s War (Lyons Press), The Sinking of the Eastland, a Chicago Reader Critics Choice Book, and more than ten novels. He is also the author of the novelization of the television series The Walking Dead, a book titled The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor. He lives in Evanston, IL.

Table of Contents

Prologue: Don't Look Away ix

Part I Bullets and Pencils 1

Chapter 1 Double-Down 3

Chapter 2 Gunsmoke 19

Chapter 3 Whispers 31

Chapter 4 The Cookie Jar 43

Chapter 5 Hard Lessons 57

Part II Bolshevik in Residence 69

Chapter 6 The Girl with the Legs 71

Chapter 7 Rules of the Game 83

Chapter 8 Unholy Pact 95

Chapter 9 Sledgehammer 109

Chapter 10 Crash Course 127

Chapter 11 In the Red 139

Chapter 12 The Gamer's Wife 153

Part III Wolves in the Henhouse 173

Chapter 13 A Shot across the Bow 175

Chapter 14 Trust No One 183

Chapter 15 Loophole 197

Chapter 16 Cat and Mouse 215

Chapter 17 Into Thin Air 227

Epilogue: No More Secrets 233

Afterword: A Daughter's Thoughts 237

Notes 243

Sources 255

Index 261

About the Authors 268

Editorial Reviews

Documentary filmmaker Gomes and novelist Bonansinga (Bloodhound) team up to tell the story of the former's father, Dennis Gomes—the driven chief of the Nevada Gaming Control Board in the 1970s who dedicated his career to curtailing corruption in Las Vegas. Gomes's task was not an easy one—in addition to the immediate threats that come along with setting the mob in one's crosshairs, he had to contend with a gaming commission reluctant to acknowledge glaring evidence of organized crime in casino operations and a state attorney general who flatly refused to prosecute the criminals outed by Gomes. Though forces beyond Gomes's control would postpone victory for almost 30 years, in 2007 the preternaturally perseverant vigilante finally helped federal prosecutors bring to justice a number of Chicago-based Mafiosos with dirty connections to the Las Vegas gambling world. (Martin Scorcese's 1995 film Casino is partly based on Gomes's efforts.) Aided by hours of interviews with Gomes and detailed records of his investigations, this telling of the sordid history of Las Vegas delivers. Agent: Peter Miller, Global Lion Intellectual Property Management, Inc. (May)

Publishers Weekly

As head of the audit division of the Nevada Gaming Control Board in the 1970s, Dennis Gomes pursued Mafia connections to Las Vegas's gambling industry. The 1995 MartinScorsese film Casino. .. drew on Mr. Gromes's investigation into how Las Vegas mobsters had embezzled more than $20 million from the Stardust Casino." —New York Times "Gomes. .. became Nevada's top casino corruption investigator in the 1970s. He later wentto work for the casinos, he told the New York Times in 1995, 'because I knew the businessfrom the inside out, and, believe it or not, I liked a lot of the people who were in it.'"—Washington Post "Dennis Gomes went from investigating crime among casino managers to joining theindustry's ranks, becoming. .. a turnaround specialist for troubled gambling venues.. .. He later described himself as a 'gung-ho, idealistic crime buster.'" —Wall Street Journal "Dennis Gomes will always be remembered as a true 'only-in-Las Vegas'-type character.. . .He was recruited from the business world to be an agent and division chief at the stateGaming Control Board. It was in that role that he and his team raided mob-controlled Las Vegas casinos." —Las Vegas Sun "Dennis Gomes. .. began his gaming career as the youngest-ever chief of the Audit Division for the Nevada Gaming Control Board, and he ended it as the co-owner of Resorts Casino and Hotel in Atlantic City, NJ—grabbing headlines from start to finish. As a gaming regulator Gomes uncovered the Stardust skim, the largest casino skim in gaming history. After this bust, Gomes decided to clean up the gaming industry from the inside." —from The Gaming Hall of Fame's profile of Dennis Gomes, 2012 Inductee

From the Publisher