GANGSTER; GAMBLING PIONEER

Visionary.

Bugsy Siegel believed that in order to get ahead, you had to have class. As a gangster who ran gambling rackets, he was something of a visionary. As part of an expansion of gambling activities in the West, he is credited with putting the small Nevada town of Las Vegas on the map as the king of the world gambling capitals.

Fiery Youth.

Benjamin Siegel was born on 28 February 1906 in Brooklyn, New York. In a manner similiar to fellow gangster Louis Lepke, Siegel began his criminal career by preying upon pushcart vendors with a sidekick named Morris Sedway. Unlike Lepke, Siegel did not usually beat the vendors he was trying to convince to buy protection from him. Rather he would simply have Sedway pour kerosene over the vendors' merchandise and then light it on fire. It usually only took a vendor one lesson to decide to pay the "insurance."

Gambling Rackets.