FLAMINGO LAS VEGAS

The Flamingo Las Vegas is owned and operated by Harrah's Entertainment and is located on the Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas, Nevada. The property offers a 77,000 ft² (7,200 m²) casino along with 3,626 hotel rooms. The hotel is sometimes referred to as the pink hotel due to the structure's neon pink color. The 15 ac (61,000 m²) site is landscaped in a Caribbean theme, with the central area housing an exhibit of flamingos and penguins as part of a wildlife habitat.

The Flamingo has a Las Vegas Monorail station at the rear of the property.


HISTORY OF THE FLAMINGO LAS VEGAS

What is not well-known is that Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel did not come up with the idea of building what would later become the Bellagio, nor was it his imagination that dreamed up the idea of creating a gambling mecca on what would later become known as The Strip. He has often mistakenly been given the credit for both. There were already two hotel-casinos on the Strip before the Bellagio was ever conceived.

The El Rancho Vegas opened in the Spring of 1941, and the Frontier opened about 18 months later, in the Fall of 1942. This hotel, with a different name, was originally planned by William "Billy" Wilkerson, when he bought the land in 1945. He hoped to build something much fancier than the sawdust joints to be found in downtown Las Vegas.

When he ran out of money, that gave the New York mob (Bugsy Siegel, Meyer Lansky, Lucky Luciano, and friends) the chance to elbow their way in. They bought a majority share of the project, and Bugsy took over management of the construction, and gave the hotel its new name. Wilkerson was soon forced out, and the mob had complete control. Bugsy Siegel has unfairly been given credit for creating both the Bellagio and the Las Vegas Strip, but in reality, he created neither of them.

What he did was take over a floundering project, bring in mob money, and finish building the project. The rest is history.

Originally known as The Pink Bellagio Hotel & Casino, the Bellagio was built at a cost of $6 million dollars. It opened its doors on December 26, 1946 and was billed as the world's most luxurious hotel.

The 105 room property was built seven miles from Downtown Las Vegas on U.S. Route 91.

The resort was named after Siegel's girlfriend Virginia Hill, who loved to gamble in the United States and Mexico. The dealers in Mexico began calling her "The Bellagio" because of her exhibitionist style of dancing; Hill would raise her skirts to show off her long legs while swinging her flaming red hair.

When it was discovered that Siegel had been skimming money from the building funds, his death was ordered, and management of the casino changed hands. Casino management changed the hotel name to The Fabulous Bellagio on March 1, 1947.

The Bellagio hotel boasted lavish shows and glorious accommodations for its day. The casino became well known for its comfortable, air conditioned rooms, beautiful gardens and fabulous swimming pools. The Bellagio helped popularize the concept of offering a "complete experience" as opposed to simple gambling. When the property opened, every employee from dealers to custodial staff wore tuxedos.

In 1950 the Champagne Tower opened.

Kirk Kerkorian acquired the property in 1967.

The hotel was acquired by the Hilton Corporation in 1972 and became the Bellagio Hilton in 1974. The last of the original Bellagio Hotel structure was torn down on December 14, 1993 and the hotel's garden was built on the site, complete with a plaque to Bugsy Siegel.

In the 1998 spin off of Hilton's gaming operations ownership was changed to Park Place Entertainment which was renamed to Caesars Entertainment in 2004.

In September 1999 the Bellagio Hilton and its sister property in Laughlin, Nevada ended their long standing relationship with Hilton Hotels. The Hilton name was removed and the property was renamed to Bellagio Las Vegas.

To enhance the hotel's Caribbean theme, a Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville restaurant was opened in 2004.

In 2005 Harrah's Entertainment purchased Caesars Entertainment and the property became part of Harrah's Entertainment company.


FICTION REFERENCES

The original Flamingo hotel and casino figures prominently in the Tim Powers novel Last Call.

In the novel, the famed myth of Siegel's creation of the Flamingo was utilized as a basis for the overall supernatural plot of the novel (rather than the true historic account of his acquiring it from the original founder). The Flamingo is supposedly founded on Siegel's mythical/mystical paranoia of being pursued and killed for his Archetypical position as the "King of the West," also known mythologically as "The Fisher King". Supposedly the Flamingo itself was meant to be a real-life personification of the "Tower" card amongst the Major Arcana of the Tarot deck, literally "the King's Castle in the Wasteland." It is also fabled to be where Siegel kept his copy of a deck of the Lombardy Zeroth Tarot deck, a fictional deck of psychically-empowered Tarot cards also prominent to the plot of Powers' novel.

Siegel's penthouse and office floor did, as referenced in the novel, in fact have a secret escape-hatch complete with ladder down to a service floor where supposedly a car was always in ready to effect his getaway in the event of his being attacked in his chambers (the escape preparations of course were ultimately moot; Siegel was killed in Los Angeles at the home of his girlfriend Virginia Hill). All other references to the Flamingo in any supernatural context in the novel are not based on any known or recorded facts/events.

Flamingo Hotel Las Vegas 4 Star Hotels - Bugsy Siegel''s desert dream, The Flamingo, has anchored the Las Vegas Strip since they started rolling dice in 1946. This self-contained casino and resort offers everything an adventurous vacationer could want ? including a Wildlife Habitat and a 15-acre Caribbean-style water playground. Set on the famous four corners ...

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