Sands Casino Rat Pack
by David G. Schwartz
227 pp., Winchester Books, 2020
$19.95
No place quite epitomizes the Rat Pack heyday more than the Sands Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas. Open from 1952 until 1996, it was their hangout of choice on the Strip – both as a hotel and as a casino – whilst it’s Copa Room saw everyone from Frank Sinatra to Sammy Davis JR and Nat King Cole perform as well as the recording of the main man. 1 day ago “Before the Rat Pack’s arrival, Vegas was all Jimmy Durante and Cyd Charisse — old hat,” said Lertzman. Sinatra was bopping through town in ’59, mulling a big payday while his elite status still. At the Sands: The Casino That Shaped Classic Las Vegas, Brought the Rat Pack Together, and Went Out With a Bang. Las Vegas: Winchester Books, 2020. The lights are coming down. Frank, Dean, and Sammy are about to take the stage. This is the moment we remember, when Las Vegas became classic. And it was at the Sands.
There are several good authors currently working the casino/gaming genre, but in my view, David Schwartz is at the top of the list. He came to my attention almost 15 years ago upon publication of his Roll the Bones in 2006. It was, and is, a definitive history of gaming, beginning in Pompeii and ending at the opening of Wynn Las Vegas in late 2005. Schwartz is an academic with a Ph.D. in History from UCLA and was serving at the time as the director of the Center for Gaming Studies at UNLV. I have to confess that I initially bought that book to have it sit on my shelf and, ideally, impress my bosses. I hoped they would think that I had read this two-inch thick tome. I was pretty confident that they’d never read it themselves, nor did I have any intention of doing so either, at least not initially. Funny thing was, once I perused the first few pages, I was hooked. That book is probably now required reading in some college courses, since in true textbook fashion, it’s full of seemingly endless notations, along with 19 pages of index. But surprisingly – or maybe not so surprisingly, considering what an engaging writer Dr. Schwartz has proven to be – it’s also a great read. I knocked off all 500 pages in a few days. Ironically, over the years, I’ve used countless factoids gleaned from this book to – you guessed it – impress my bosses. Since that time, I’ve never missed any of Schwartz’s 11 other books, including the updated Casino Edition of Roll The Bones, which was published in 2013 and covers roughly five more years than the original did.
It’s an overworked reviewers’ compliment, but so be it: I honestly couldn’t put down his latest work, At the Sands: The Casino That Shaped Classic Las Vegas. Brought the Rat Pack Together and Went Out with a Bang.
Sands Casino Rat Pack
Like his other works, this book is meticulously researched. There are literally 30 pages of notes gleaned from dozens and dozens of sources, the most impressive being the extensive oral histories Schwartz surveyed.
Perhaps that’s why reading the book makes it seem like Schwartz was in the room with a tape recorder when notorious characters like “Doc” Stacher and Meyer Lansky were carving up Las Vegas. Schwartz has a way of crafting single paragraphs that function as mini-treaties on the very culture of gaming operations in the 1950s: “…a hotel guest betting a dollar on roulette or his wife putting a nickel in a slot machine was not, in their minds, a gambler; they were mere tourists, to be tolerated and even humored, but never truly respected.”
And if the names of brilliant early operators at the Sands like Al Freedman, Jack Entratter and Carl Cohen don’t ring a bell with you, how about Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr.? They are as tightly linked to the Sands legacy as any of the casino managers, and this book has some insights on them that are fascinating. Schwartz debunks the myths and rumors surrounding what really happened the night that Mr. Sinatra’s front teeth encountered the fist of a Sands manager – and what Frank did or didn’t do about it.
You might also find it interesting that the Sands casino began as the French-themed LaRue (you could probably win a few bar bets with that bit of trivia, once the bars open again.) The property was also instrumental in helping guide the Las Vegas paths of both Howard Hughes and Kirk Kerkorian. And of course, Sheldon Adelson would eventually join them as one of the richest men in the world, after he blew up the place. Along the way, he built the most impressive convention center in town and completely changed how Las Vegas made its money. The details on that, too, are all in this book.
Sands Casino Rat Packages
There are lots of good reasons to read this book, but it’s particularly interesting to consider its subject matter in light of the recent and incredibly timely rumblings on the Strip that Adelson may be putting a For Sale sign on the Sands once again (for non-locals, it’s known as the Venetian, Palazzo and Sands Convention Center these days).
Dr. Schwartz has now been promoted to UNLV’s Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs, whatever that may be. But, even without any such lofty title, he’s one of the top gaming historians working today, with a knack for making that history readable, entertaining, and over much too quickly.
At the Sands is timely, relevant to today’s news, a great read, a thorough and thoroughly entertaining slice of Las Vegas history, and with a little luck, the stories you’ll learn will enable you, too, to impress your bosses. Trust me.
Sands Casino Rat Package
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