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Frank Lawrence "Lefty" Rosenthal

Frank Lawrence "Lefty" Rosenthal (June 12, 1929 – October 13, 2008) was an American sports handicapper and a former Las Vegas casino executive. He also hosted a television talk show in Las Vegas during the late 1970s.

Biography

Rosenthal was born into a Jewish family in Chicago, Illinois, from the city's West Side, where he developed a close friendship with Anthony Spilotro. He had numerous arrests and indictments for gambling crimes, including bribing players to fix football, basketball and other games, but few convictions.

A pioneer of sports gambling, Rosenthal secretly ran the Stardust, Fremont, Marina and Hacienda casinos when they were controlled by the Mafia. He was the first to operate a sports book from within a casino (previously, the inefficient norm had been to do the opposite), making the Stardust one of the world's leading centers for sports gambling. Another Rosenthal innovation was to allow female blackjack dealers; in just one year, this doubled the Stardust's income.

In 1976, when authorities discovered that Rosenthal was secretly running casinos without the Nevada license needed to officially do so, they held a hearing to determine his legal ability to obtain a gaming license. The board's decision: Rosenthal was denied a license as an employee in a casino. However, he later succeeded in an appeal before Judge Joseph Pavlikowski (who had been given a write off of $2,800 -- the cost of his daughter's wedding two years earlier -- at the same hotel at which Rosenthal had been working as a publicity director). An effort to have Rosenthal's name included in the Black Book (which would have banned him from being in or near any casino in Nevada, and could cause any casino he was found in to lose its license), was temporarily thwarted in 1988 by Judge Pavlikowski, but his decision was ultimately overruled.

It has been said that Rosentahl was nicknamed "Lefty" because, during a Congressional subcommittee hearing, he pleaded the Fifth Amendment 37 times, not even answering the question of whether or not he was left-handed. In fact, however, he had the nickname from childhood, simply because he was left-handed.

Rosenthal married Geraldine McGee, and while she had a daughter, Robin L. Marmor, prior to their marriage (fathered by Lenny Marmor), Frank and Geri had two children together, Steven and Stephanie. The marriage ultimately ended in divorce, with Rosenthal attributing the failure primarily to McGee's inability to escape her alcohol and drug addictions. After leaving Rosenthal and stealing a significant portion of his savings, Geri died at a motel in Los Angeles on November 9, 1982, at age 46, of an apparent drug overdose. Her death was ruled accidental, from a combination of Valium, cocaine and Jack Daniel's whiskey.

Rosenthal survived an assassination attempt in 1982 after his car was rigged with explosives. Many people state that it was pure luck that he survived because his car was a 1981 Cadillac Eldorado which had a metal plate under the driver's seat (GM installed it to correct a balancing problem); it was the only thing that saved his life. He subsequently was forced out of Las Vegas (he was placed in "the Black Book" in 1988, making him persona non grata -- and unhireable -- in every Nevada casino ever since) because of his alleged ties with organized crime. He retired to Laguna Niguel, California, then to Boca Raton, Florida, and then settled in Miami Beach, where he handicapped sports events through his website. Rosenthal stated in an interview that he snuck in and out of Las Vegas all the time under disguises such as a wig or fake beard.

The 1995 Martin Scorsese film Casino, based on the book by Nicholas Pileggi, was inspired by Rosenthal's career in Las Vegas. Rosenthal (re-named "Sam 'Ace' Rothstein") was played by Robert De Niro, and his Mafia associate Anthony Spilotro (re-named "Nicky Santoro") was played by Joe Pesci. Rosenthal's story was featured on The History Channel's, "True Crime Authors," as well.

Rosenthal died of a heart attack in his Florida home October 13, 2008, aged 79. (Credit: Wikipedia).

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