In 1980, Wayne Newton was at the peak of his Las Vegas career. He was playing sold-out shows at the Aladdin Theater for the Performing Arts, earning millions annually, and living like royalty. But on May 1, 1980, he went from headliner to owner. Newton announced he was buying the Aladdin Hotel and Casino for $85 million, promising to turn it into the greatest entertainment destination in the world.
The FBI had other plans. According to agents and court documents that emerged later, Newton wasn’t the real buyer—he was the public face. Federal investigators said the true owners were tied to organized crime, and the Aladdin was their most sophisticated money laundering operation. The purchase was backed by a Detroit partnership with deep mob roots, and the Las Vegas gaming license was merely a formality for a front man.
The Aladdin wasn’t just a casino with a glittering marquee. The FBI’s own files, compiled over years of wiretaps and surveillance, alleged that the property operated a “skim” operation: an illegal second count before the official tally, siphoning off cash from high rollers before it was reported to the IRS. By the mid-1980s, agents believe the skim and money laundering netted more than $100 million a year. But the scheme didn’t stop at the tables.
The casino cage was used to convert dirty cash into clean cashier’s checks. The FBI tracked money wiring from drug sales in Detroit, Chicago, and New York flowing straight through the Aladdin. Even as the casino’s official ownership traded hands, the same money, and the same criminal networks, kept circling back. Despite the evidence, the FBI didn’t move quickly.
They knew you can’t arrest someone just for being suspicious, and they needed a case that would hold. So they waited, hoping the operation would lead to bigger mob convictions. But when they finally had enough, authorities said they faced an unexpected problem: too many powerful people in Washington didn’t want the public to know how deeply the mob had infiltrated Nevada gaming. The case was shelved, and the Aladdin’s owners kept their license.
Wayne Newton, meanwhile, claimed he was a victim. He said he had put up his own money and had no idea who was really bankrolling the project. But the pressure was mounting. The FBI was watching him, and so was the mob.
When the deal faltered, he lost control of the casino, but he avoided prosecution—his lawyers argued he was as much a pawn as anyone else. The Aladdin was sold, resold, and reorganized. It filed for bankruptcy, was reborn under new ownership, and in 1998, it closed its doors entirely. The property was purchased, renamed, and rebuilt.
By 2011, all traces of the original structure were demolished. Even the name was erased. The new owners, Caesar’s Entertainment, wanted nothing to do with its past. But the past didn’t die quietly.
Eight years earlier, in 2004, workers demolishing parts of the old building discovered something hidden in the walls: seven metal boxes filled with counterfeit casino chips from the 1980s, the kind used by organized crime to infiltrate casinos and convert fake chips into real money. Caesar’s Entertainment reported the find to Nevada Gaming Control, but no one was ever charged. Since the 1980s, the property has had the highest employee turnover rate of any major casino on the Strip. Employees transfer out as soon as they can.
Dealers whisper about money that goes missing, small amounts that never trigger a full investigation but are never explained. Some blame ghost stories and urban legends. Others say the skim never really stopped, just got quieter. “The FBI documented it,” one retired agent recalled.
“We had the whole thing documented, names, dates, amounts. We could have prosecuted two dozen people under RICO statutes. But too many people in Washington did not want the public knowing how badly the mob had infiltrated Nevada Gaming, so they buried it. ”
The official history of the Aladdin reads like a failed business story: poor management, bad debts, and bad luck.
The unofficial version, the one that lives on in FBI files and the memories of the men who worked the case, tells a different story. By the time the last piece of the building was torn down, the FBI had moved on to other cases. The owners had moved on to other casinos. The people who truly controlled the Aladdin were never arrested.
They faded back into the shadows, their names kept off gaming licenses and out of court records. The FBI hoped for years that the case would crack open, but it never did. The Aladdin was buried, both literally and figuratively, and the men who profited most were never brought to justice. And when the wrecking ball came, no one was left to question what else might still be hidden in those walls.
As one former agent put it, “We’ll probably never know. Because Caesar’s Entertainment isn’t digging any deeper. “