The Nevada Gaming Control Board's List of Excluded Persons, colloquially known as the "Black Book," was originally established in the wake of the U.S. Senate's Kefauver hearings of the early '50s –- the first concerted effort to expose and smash organized crime. The Black Book was first instituted in 1960 as a means of excluding from casinos those people deemed to be a threat to the casino business and, in the words of the Nevada Supreme Court, "avoiding any potentially significant criminal or corruptive taint and thus maintaining public confidence and trust in the gambling industry."
While the original book was said to have had a black binding, it's now bound in a silver cover that bears the Nevada state seal. But it's still known as the Black Book, not least because of the blacklisted status of all those named in it.
At its inception in 1960 and for the most part thereafter, the power of the Black Book has been directed primarily against those associated with organized crime. The first 11 names added were all reputed mobsters, mainly with ties to organized-crime syndicates in Chicago, L.A., and Kansas City. They included John Louis Battaglia, Marshal Caifano (who in ’62 unsuccessfully challenged the constitutionality of the list), Carl James Civella, Nicholas Civella, Michael Coppola, Louis Tom Dragna, Robert L. Garcia, Sam Giancana, Motl Grzebienacy, Murray Llewellyn Humphreys, and Joseph Sica.
After this initial flurry in 1960, three names were added in ’65 and then no more for another decade. Tony "the Ant" Spilotro was added in 1978 and a couple of other reputed mobsters were included the following year. There then followed another huge gap until 1986 when John Vaccaro, the mastermind behind a massive slot-cheating syndicate and a member of a southern California organized-crime family, was added to the list. His wife Sandra Vaccaro was also included and remains the only woman ever to grace the pages of the Black Book.
Since then, the majority of new names added, which still amounts to a mere 56 in total since the Black Book’s inception, have been of those associated with organized crime and/or illegal bookmaking/slot cheating. In 1991 the Nevada Supreme Court upheld Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal's listing, while one of the more sensational additions in more recent years was Ron Harris.
A 12-year employee of the State Gaming Control Board, Harris was assigned to evaluate gaming devices, but was arrested in 1995 in New Jersey for using a computer program to win $100,000 on a keno game. He was later charged in Nevada for rigging slot machines to pay fraudulent jackpots and was added to the Black Book in 1997. As an interesting aside, Ron was subsequently employed by Huntington Press as an IT tech for a number of years and remains famous for bringing a lethal blue cocktail to our annual New Year's party.
Under state gaming law, anyone can be placed in the Black Book if he/she has a felony conviction; committed a crime involving moral turpitude or violated gaming laws in another state; failed to disclose an interest in a gaming establishment; willfully evaded paying taxes or fees; or has a "notorious or unsavory" reputation established through state or federal government investigations.
Originally, the process of placing someone on the list was an administrative function without due process, but nominees are now allowed to attend a public hearing to dispute their inclusion. Once listed in the Black Book, if members are caught entering a restricted gaming establishment, they face a gross-misdemeanor charge. Exemptions include airports, bars, and stores with 15 slot machines or less and no gaming tables.
Nevada law-enforcement authorities have said many more names should be on the list. Its surprisingly short list of names and tendency to include clichéd mobster types have led people to dismiss it as nothing more than a publicity stunt that's called into use periodically to make a point. In their 1995 book, The Black Book and the Mob, University of Nevada--Las Vegas sociologists Ronald A. Farrell and Carole Case summed up their argument as follows: "Our story traces a pattern of exclusion that suggests that certain competing criminal interests have been winners in part because they established themselves as legitimate and were licensed preferentially by the regulators. Thus, the Black Book blacklisted only certain organized crime figures and forbade them from entering casinos. While no more criminal than many of their more businesslike counterparts in the industry, those whose names have been placed in the book tend to be caricatures of the mafia stereotype."
Excluding Lefty Rosenthal, whose name will be removed now that he's deceased, currently 35 names are on the List of Excluded Persons. You can view them all by clicking here.
