Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Casino legend Sachs operated in different Las Vegas

Las Vegas was a different town when sharp-dressing, easy-going casino owner Al Sachs was one of the most recognizable names in town.

In the 1980s there was no laser light show canopy over Sachs' downtown Fremont hotel. Three Strip neighbors to his Stardust hotel -- the Sands, Desert Inn and Dunes -- are gone, replaced by corporate Las Vegas and the megaresorts that his departure helped usher in.

When Allan David Sachs died of complications of pneumonia in Henderson Sunday night at age 76, many present-day Las Vegans had never heard his name, nor were they aware of his one-time front-page status.

That perhaps is more a reflection on Las Vegas than on Al Sachs. He was no Howard Hughes, Wilbur Clark or Moe Dalitz, but he had his place among those legendary casino figures.

"I'm not so sure you can say we have left a gambling legacy, other than how to treat customers right, because the town has changed so much since we had licenses," said Sachs' gaming partner Herb Tobman, now a local cab company owner. "There are only three or four guys like us left."

Sachs represented a Las Vegas -- before the international corporations took over the Strip -- where a guy could rise from the ranks of dealer to casino owner. Of course, some alleged his rise was as a front-man for the mob, when such things existed in Las Vegas.

"You know the movie 'Goodfellas'? Well, I can tell you Al was a good fella -- for real," Tobman said. "Before someone says that's a Mafia reference, I want it clear that Al was never in the Mafia. He would tell you himself, 'I am a Jew, what do I know about the Mafia?' "

A Dec. 12, 1979, story in the Wall Street Journal first -- and perhaps forever -- linked Sachs to rumors of a mob association. Later allegations of skimming at his casinos cost him his gaming license in the mid-1980s.

Sachs, who also in the 1970s founded the Sundance downtown -- now Fitzgerald's -- denied all of the allegations, which were never proven, to the end.

Still, the innuendo brought down a gaming career that started in illegal Chicago gambling halls in the mid-1940s. And it reflected the prevailing attitude about Las Vegas at the time.

"The Las Vegas of Al's era was a town that was perceived only for its gambling and alleged skimming," longtime Las Vegas gaming analyst Phil Hevener said.

"When the Wall Street Journal did any story on Las Vegas, they sent their mob beat reporter to do it. Today Las Vegas' business scene is covered," said Hevener, former Sun gaming columnist and now co-owner of Las Vegas Style magazine. "Also, back then, the Kansas City tapes (FBI mob wiretaps dealing with Las Vegas casinos) caused quite a stir. Again, today's Las Vegas perception is much different."

In his later years Sachs, according to his second wife Janice Sachs, preferred to talk about the good times he had in the Las Vegas of old.

"He was always grateful to have lived in a time when, as a young man with no credit, he could talk to the Las Vegas bankers, who would take a liking to him and give him the loans needed to buy the casinos," Janice Sachs said. "You cannot do that in today's Las Vegas."

Services for the Las Vegas resident of 50 years, who died of complications of pneumonia, were to be at 3 p.m. today in Palm Mortuary, 7600 S. Eastern Ave. The family suggests donations to the American Parkinson's Disease Association, P.O. Box 218, Las Vegas, NV 89146.

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