Louis Tom Dragna

1960-1967

Los Angeles mobsters, Louis Tom Dragna and John “The Bat” Battaglia, conversed in a hotel-casino cocktail lounge on the Las Vegas Strip one day in February 1960. But their visit was cut short when Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB) agents appeared with local police who arrested the two.

They charged them with vagrancy and threatened to arrest them the next time they appeared in Sin City (they soon after dropped the vagrancy charge).

Gaming authorities didn’t want either man in any Nevada casino, which they formalized via the “Black Book” two months after the undesirables’ arrest. The black book, whose creation had been in progress prior to the Dragna/Battaglia incident, contained the names of individuals casino operators had to keep out of their facilities or lose their gambling license.

The NGCB strictly enforced it, having those on the list kicked out of gambling clubs. Repeat offender Johnny Marshall (aka Marshall Caifano), triggerman for the Chicago syndicate with 18 arrests on his record between 1929 and 1951, found himself booted out several times.

“I agree with any measures necessary to keep the hoodlums out of Nevada,” said Nevada Governor Grant Sawyer. “The operators have a great responsibility to cooperate. We might as well serve notice on underworld characters right now that they are not welcome in Nevada and we aren’t going to have them here” (Nevada State Journal, Nov. 2, 1960).

Hashed Out In The Courts

That year, Dragna tested the constitutionality of the black book in the courts. He sought a federal court injunction against it and the members of both state gaming agencies. He claimed they caused Las Vegas hotels to refuse him entry, depriving him of his rights as a U.S. citizen.

Marshall also sued each gaming regulator along with Governor Sawyer for ($100 apiece) and the Desert Inn (for $150,000), whose staff had kicked him out.

In 1961, a U.S. District Court judge dismissed Dragna and Marshall’s suits on the grounds that gambling isn’t a protected federal civil right and the matter was a state one.

Marshall Pursues The Cause

Within the following year, Dragna dropped his appeal upon being sentenced to five years in prison for extorting the manager of a boxing champion.

As for Marshall’s case, the appellate judges remanded it to federal district court for trial. One justice suggested that “Nevada has as much right to keep suspect persons out of its casinos as Texas ranchers have to ban cattle with hoof and mouth disease” (Nevada State Journal, May 13, 1962).

Subsequently, Marshall lost in federal court and again appealed. In 1966, six years after gaming authorities distributed the black book, the U.S. Court of Appeals upheld its use. It noted that neither being put on the list nor being denied entry to casinos was unconstitutional.

The U.S. Supreme Court, in 1967, refused to hear the case, finally answering the civil rights question.

Sources

1960

A cheap, spiral notebook held great power in Nevada’s gambling world for decades.

It contained known U.S. mobsters whose underworld statuses and histories were such that the state gambling authorities didn’t want them anywhere near The Silver State’s casinos. This was a problem as these undesirables frequented major gambling operations in the state.

Nevada had legalized gambling in 1931, but it wasn’t until about two decades later that casinos became under stricter regulatory control, after the creation of two such agencies — first the Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB) in 1955 and then the Nevada Gaming Commission (NGC) in 1959.

Soon after, in 1960, the NGCB created and distributed the book to major casinos along with the state regulation mandating all casinos be operated in a way “suitable to protect the public health, safety, morals, good order and general welfare of the State of Nevada.” Casinos weren’t to allow the hoodlums in the book into their establishments … under any circumstances … ever.

Failure to comply meant losing their gambling licenses and, thus, ability to run such enterprises. The compilation garnered the name “Black Book,” not because of its sinister connotations but due to its plain black cover. And despite being labeled “Top Secret,” everyone seemed to know about it.

Each mobster in the black book garnered one page, which contained their picture, aliases and FBI file number. Over time, the NGCB deleted names from and added names to the list. The public never knew how and why the gambling regulators chose the undesirables they did for inclusion.

Blacklisted Mobsters

These were the 11 original bad boys in the black book and their primary cities of operation:

Chicago

• Salvatore Giancana (aka Salvatore Giancana, Sam Giancana, Momo, Mooney, Sam the Cigar, Sammy): a boss from 1957 to 1966
• Llewelyn Morris Humphreys (aka Murray Llewelyn Humphreys, Murray Humphreys, The Camel, The Hump): an alleged lieutenant of Al Capone and Sam Giancana
• Marcello Giuseppe Caifano (aka Johnny Marshall, Marshall Caifano): an overseer of mob-controlled casinos in Las Vegas who was suspected of numerous murders

Kansas City

• Nicholas Civella (aka Nick Civella): a mob boss (brother of Carl Civella)
• Carl James Civella (aka Cork): in charge of day-to-day operations (brother of Nicholas Civella)
• Motel Grzebienacz (aka Max Jaben): an associate and alleged lieutenant for Sam Giancana

Los Angeles

• Louis Tom Dragna (aka Lou Allen): a boss, who challenged the black book’s constitutionality
• John Louis Battaglia (aka The Bat): an associate
• Joseph Sica (aka J.S., Joe Sica): a racketeer involved in bookmaking, armed robbery, murder for hire, extortion and narcotics distribution
• Robert L. Garcia (aka Bobby Garcia): an associate

New York

• Michael Coppola (aka Trigger Mike): a capo for the Genovese crime family

Today, a digital version of the black book (the Excluded Persons list) exists on Nevada’s gambling agencies’ website. Along with underworld-affiliated individuals, it contains known, big-time gambling cheaters.

Sources