Customer Reviews

The Green Felt Jungle

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As a child I remember growing up in Las Vegas, knowing the real truth behind som eof the more notorious figures in town. I remember finding a copy of Green Felt and was enthralled by the truth as I knew it. I grew up in the casino business and some of the people mentioned in the book were like family (remember until recently Las Vegas was truly a small town). If only someone would produce this into a "A" movie. With the interest in "mobs" and "gangsters" I feel the public would love it, if done right. Of course as with the movie Casino, the political leaders would dismiss its authenticity and publicly deny anything ever happened. I highly recommend this book to those interested in how the casino industry gre in Las Vegas, its roots, its founders and how it got where its at today ......

While the book is old and dated, the story is extremely well written and keeps the intensity level up there right up to the final pages. While today's Vegas is nothing like the Vegas of old, the book provides a fascinating look into an otherwise secret world. A good read.

This book was great. It steps through the things that happened in Vegas and the truth about the events and people that made this great town.

I liked reading "Green Felt Jungle". I enjoy visiting Las Vegas,
and even though the town is a different place now than it was
at the time described by the book, it still helps to know
some history. One of the fascinating chapters describes the
entry into town of Mr. Benny Binion, and his feud with an
adversary named Herb Noble. Not all gang warfare involved the
Mafia, I guess. I have no idea how true to life the book is. I
can't call myself streetwise, or a tough guy, by any stretch of
the imagination, but it sounds real. One thing I agree with.
However bad the Mafia and other gangsters might have been (and I
have no doubt that they were mostly slimy psychos), Las Vegas
was probably a more interesting place, in some ways, before
the corporations took over completely.

Like all books on organized crime written in the 50's and early 60's, prior to the Valachi revelations, RICO, and the increase in wiretapping, Green Felt Jungle suffers from the lack of information available to investigative journalists like Ed Reid. For all that, he does a great job at piecing together the facts and heresay regarding the early days of Las Vegas. The book is not, however, a true history of the city; rather, Reid, as in his other OC work ( Mafia! and The Grim Reapers ), gives us a snapshot of prominent gangsters who built the casinos. He incorporates a good deal of transcriptions from the Kefauver hearings and other documents, which are both revelatory and lively. The chapter on Benny Binion, the Texas gang boss who eventually created the World Series of Poker, was especially compelling. My only familiarity with Binion's story was the brief recap in James McManus's terrific Positively Fifth Street. Reid's fuller history of the man and his Capone-like gang warfare, reveals the dark history that gave birth to the legit, big bucks world of contemporary tournament poker. Also of interest is the chapter on Joseph "Doc" Stacher, and the peripheral glances we get of the Lansky brothers, Moe Dalitz, Barry Goldwater (!), and a host of assorted Mafiosi. For Ed Reid, these men are vile with no vestige of Tony Soprano ambiguity. Reid does, however, make some errors: the Purple Gang was primarily Jewish, not Sicilian
( inexcusable, as the Purple's story was well reported in newspapers of the 20's and 30's); also widely known, Bugsy Siegel was murdered in Virginia Hill's home, not his own, and he joined with Meyer Lansky when he was in his early teens, not at the age of twenty. Nor was the Bugs & Meyer mob primarily an early prototype of Murder Inc., but rather, a guns-and-trucks-for-hire service to protect bootleggers bringing in booze from Rum Row. Minor errors, yes, but how many others does the book contain? Still, Green Felt Jungle gives us an unforgettable picture of organized crime in the 50's and early 60's.

Thanks so much for sending the book so quickly. I know my friend will really enjoy it.