Castle Mona, home to the Manx, or Isle of Man, Casino, 1964

1961-1966

“When you bring in gamblers, you bring in trained law violators, and to expect them not to break the law is to expect the tides not to rise,” Wallace Turner wrote in Gambler’s Money.

The Manx Casino, also called the Isle of Man Casino, named for its locale, was a case in point.

A Dubious Proposition

The enterprise came about despite and after much opposition to the idea. The roughly 300 Methodist Manx “raised hell about a gambling joint on the island,” Turner wrote.

The Manx government itself wasn’t sold on it entirely, which led to heated debate. Even England hadn’t considered legalizing gambling yet and wouldn’t do so until 1962.

“Some politicians portrayed casino gambling as an act that could subvert the Isle of Man’s respectability, but also one that surrendered national sovereignty by making the Manx Treasury subservient to the taxation revenue procured from multinational gambling magnates,” Pete Hodson wrote in the 2018 article, “‘The Isle of Vice?'”

The Manx House of Keys legalized gambling with a 15-to-9 vote on the Pool Betting Act in 1961.

Two years later, in May 1963, the Manx Casino debuted, the first gambling house in the British Isles.

“Anxious politicians and members of the public were reassured that the casino would be subject to tight regulation, and that unruly behaviour would not be tolerated,” wrote Hodson.

Americans At The Helm 

Initially, the gambling enterprise was sited in a temporary spot, inside Castle Mona, a hotel in the Douglas Promenade. Plans called for it to be moved later to a permanent location.

Casino Ltd., a group of Americans, held and operated the gambling concession. They included three Maryland businesspeople: William A. Albury and John D. Hickey, who headed it, and silent partner Helen Saul who provided most of the required upfront capital. Frank O’Neill, 49, was the casino director; Las Vegan William Paris, 39, was the deputy director; Raymond Gavilan, 45, supervisor; and Arthur P. Anderson (Hickey’s nephew), 23, cashier. James D. Gilson was another employee.

The syndicate was to pay the Manx government €5,000 pounds a year plus 15 percent of its profits.

Because half of the island’s economy relied on tourist spending at the time, the casino catered to the middle and lower classes.

“The betting was to be on the ‘Woolworth principle,’ of small stakes and large turnover of bettors. No French phrases were used,” Turner wrote. “[Patrons] even were offered lessons in roulette, chemin de fer, blackjack and craps.”

Prediction Comes True

After employee Gilson tipped off the police, they raided the casino in December and investigated the finances. O’Neill, Paris, Gavilan and Anderson were arrested and charged with conspiring to steal money from the Manx Casino since it opened and receiving stolen money, “‘thereby defrauding both the casino company and the government,” Manx Attorney General David Lay said, as quoted by Turner. The quartet was jailed and stripped of their work permits and passports.

Six months later, in late June, the former casino employees’ trial began.

Lay, the prosecutor, argued the four employees had engaged in fiddles, or types of swindling, including fudging the amounts on cash-out slips, I.O.U.s and checks, to allocate money to be skimmed, which then had been. From the skim, the wages of the four men had been paid. In carrying out these irregularities, Lay said, the defendants had defrauded the casino company and the government.

Palace Hotel & Casino, Douglas, Isle of Man

Defense Barrister Rose Heilbron countered that the defendants simply had been following orders of their bosses Albury and Hickey in regards to the skimming and their pay. As such, the company had known all along the funds were being stolen.

Rather than the four employees, Heilbron purported, Casino Ltd.’s two executives, who since had fled the Isle of Man, should’ve been the ones on trial. One had to wonder why they weren’t, she noted.

She charged that Albury and Hickey “had drawn cheque after cheque for unknown purposes. The fiddle had been to give the two tax-free living. The casino had provided the perfect front for all Albury’s activities” (Liverpool Echo and Evening Express, July 1, 1964).

Ultimately, the jury found all four men guilty of conspiring to steal. The judge sentenced them to spend six months in prison, pay a fine — O’Neill and Paris, €300, Gavilan €150 and Anderson €75 — and possibly be deported.

(A swindle by a different set of Americans would take place in England in 1969.)

The Next Phase

In 1964, the Palace Coliseum, in the Douglas Promenade, was demolished, and in its place a new building was constructed for the Manx Casino and a hotel.

The gambling facility, which Scottish actor Sir Sean Connery ushered in, opened in May 1966 under a different name, Palace Hotel & Casino.

“I wish the people in London could see the Casino,” he said. “There is nothing like it there!”

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1970-1972

Meyer Lansky was the puppeteer behind the scenes of the world’s gambling stage from the 1930s to the 1970s, controlling and manipulating the characters, or National Crime Syndicate members, with aplomb.

He capitalized on his brilliant financial acumen to develop and skim from an international casino empire — encompassing various U.S. states, Cuba, England, Haiti, the Bahamas and Lebanon  — that generated obscene amounts of money. At the height of his success in this endeavor, the late 1960s, this Eastern Europe-born immigrant, né Maier Suchowljansky, was worth an estimated $300 million ($2.3 billion today).

New Home Sought

At age 68, Lansky and his second wife Thelma (“Teddie”) moved from Miami Beach, Florida to Israel in October 1970 and four months later, applied for citizenship, as the Mobster wanted to live out the rest of his life there. It’s unknown if the reason was his Zionist beliefs or desire to distance himself from potential future criminal charges in the United States. Perhaps it was a bit of both.

“I don’t want to make money here,” Lansky told the Haaretz newspaper. “I am Jewish and I want to live here.”

At that time, under its Law of Return, Israel allowed all Jews from elsewhere except criminals to move there and become naturalized.

However, by that time, a number of racketeers already were using that country as a safe haven from legal reprisal back home. They included gamblers Morris Schmertzter aka Max Courtney, Al Mones, Hyman “Hymie” Segal and Frank Hitter aka Red Reed, along with other underworld players.

In March, two months after Lansky requested Israeli citizenship, a U.S. federal grand jury indicted him for skimming profits from the Flamingo hotel-casino in Las Vegas between 1960 and 1967. When he failed to appear before the grand jury after being subpoenaed, he was charged with contempt of court. Neither offense, however, required Israel to extradite Lansky under its treaty with the U.S.

The underworld’s financial ace told the newspaper, Maariv, he didn’t intend to return to the U.S. because he couldn’t be guaranteed a fair trial. He added that he was a retired, honest gambler, not a gangster.

In September 1971, after an investigation into Lansky’s background, Israel’s Interior Ministry denied him citizenship on the grounds he “was likely to be a threat to public order” (Reno Evening Gazette, Jan. 14, 1972).

Dissatisfied, Lansky and his attorney took the issue to the Supreme Court of Israel. A temporary injunction allowed the “The Mob’s Accountant” to stay put until resolution of the case.

Both Sides Make Plea

Before the high court, in March 1972, Israel’s state attorney, Gavriel Bach, asked the jurists to reject Lansky’s appeal. Bach argued that granting Lansky citizenship would set a dangerous precedent in that, according to reports from the FBI, Interpol and Scotland Yard, Lansky was deeply involved in organized crime in the States and Canada, with connections worldwide. In fact, the British agency had noted in a report the gaming impresario had tried to arrange a summit with some of his criminal cohorts in Tel Aviv in May 1971.

As if to punctuate Bach’s points, while the proceedings were underway, in June 1972, Lansky was indicted again in the U.S., that third time for conspiring to evade federal income taxes on money received from gamblers on junkets to a London casino. Bach informed the court of that development, too. He noted, however, that Israel wouldn’t deport the accused even if it ultimately were to deny him citizenship.

Attorney Yoran Alrio presented Lansky’s side at the proceeding. Alrio argued that his client simply wanted to retire in Israel out of Jewish religious sentiment, that he lacked a criminal record excluding some minor offenses and that the allegations of a criminal past and connections were simply “rumors, slander and gossip” (Nevada State Journal, March 24, 1972). Alrio quoted an FBI report indicating Lansky had been inactive for seven years.

The Verdict, Implications

Three months later, the supreme court announced its decision; it denied Lansky’s appeal for citizenship, meaning he had to leave Israel.

One and a half months later, at October’s end, with Lansky still not gone, the Interior Ministry gave him two weeks to depart or face expulsion. Technically, it wasn’t a deportation or extradition, as Israel wasn’t mandating that Lansky return to the U.S. Rather, he was free to go where he pleased … assuming the country of his choice would have him.

Within the given deadline, the underworld chieftain left the Holy Land with a Paraguayan visa. Yet, when he arrived at the airport in Asunción, he was prevented from disembarking the plane. He continued on the flight through South America to Florida. By mid-November, Lansky, then age 70, was back in the U.S., again taking up residence in Miami Beach.

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