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SURVEILLANCE UNCLASSIFIED
by Vinny DeCarlo
Vinny DeCarlo is the author of
How to Beat Casino Surveillance – Insider’s Secrets for Card Counters. He is a retired veteran casino man with over 20 years of upper management experience. His expertise covers the pit, security, and surveillance, and he even served as a General Manager for two different casinos. Currently, Vinny travels the states as a freelance reporter and a personal consultant to many Indian casinos. He also recently appeared on the Getting the Edge radio show from Las Vegas (http://www.bobdancer.com/mp3/gwae081811.mp3). According to Vinny, there are two types of casino employees - those that know him, and those that claim to know him; therefore, never believe what you hear."Back then, a wise surveillance guy would run silent, run deep, or just f****** run man, run." Anonymous Casino Surveillance Employee
Editor’s Note: Everyone knows that the mob controlled the casinos in the early days of Las Vegas. What most folks don’t know is that included the employees who worked in the casino surveillance rooms. Here’s the inside scoop of what went down in those days from a former Las Vegas casino surveillance employee who lived through this period of history.
It’s the mid 1970’s to early 1980’s and the war is going full blast. Not just on one front, but from both sides. We had the State fighting with the casino owners (meaning, organized crime), the casino owners fighting with other casino owners, and the Fed’s fighting with the State. Meanwhile, the inner chain of command within the casinos were splitting at the seams as the power struggle brewed over the top with the elimination of those in the know being the means to an end
. In other words, a dead "wiseguy" tells no tales.Though the rules had been set many years earlier by the mob, the "nobody dies within the city limits" rule, had been cast aside as bullet for bullet, and bomb for bomb, was matched in the streets as the final days ended when the families fought for every inch of property, and Benny was dropping bombs from his plane in Arizona and finally decided to high tale it to the meadows and capture a piece of the pie for himself.
For most casino-security employees, it wasn’t a surprise at all. They saw it coming and they were stuck in the middle, left to choose sides. They could either be on their boss’ side or could turncoat and testify against some serious heavies in the mob world. The word coming down from the mob to them was clear: make the wrong choice and it could cost you more than your job.
In the earlier days, "the Eye" was a comfortable place to be if you worked in a casino. The worst thing you could expect is to have your palm greased with a few Benjamin’s and asked to take a walk to the rest room or "just lose yourself for 10 minutes." When you got back from your "break," you would find an empty room with almost every camera off or pointing towards the ceiling. You could only wonder what the hell happened; however, a few hundred bucks could go a long way for a man with a family, who had struggled most of his life doing the right thing with nothing to show for it but maybe a failed marriage due to the financial woes of the day. Trust me on this: It was hard for these casino security workers to turn their back on the mountain of money that they had been trained to watch but never to touch or to talk about, and never ever to mention anything they had seen or heard, or to talk about the information they were privy to.
Watching your supervisor (or department head) being tortured in the hidden "holding" room, which was usually in a freezer or a room built near the freezers because the electric load hum of the reefer units would drown out even the loudest of screams, was common place. After everything that was said and done, the "boys" would grant you a few hundred extra take-home bills that would usually keep your head above water and in good graces with the mob.
Though the security employees found it unbearable at times to watch what the "boys" would do to their coworkers or supervisors that they may have just had a conversation with minutes earlier, they were convinced that the person being abused deserved it; otherwise, they wouldn’t be getting what the mob believed they were owed. Be real about this: I mean they had to have done something to draw that much heat upon themselves, don’t you think?
Besides, what could you do, call the cops? Hell, most of them were on the take too, so trying to help could land you in the same boat they were in (knowing too much). You couldn’t risk having your car bombed or finding a strangler in the dark back seat of your car waiting for him to do his "the dirty work." This shit was real and the mob was playing for keeps.To this day, most of the bodies from those that won too much...
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