As a promised continued effort to get many of our chips online, we have put many of our Flamingo Hotel and Casino chips on our website from the famous Las Vegas Strip property this week. You can view them below. Our chips cover all different eras. We even have ones from Margaritaville, Flamingo Capri and Flamingo Hilton. This week, I wanted to share some interesting tidbits and facts about the Flamingo Las Vegas Hotel and Casino.
As we told you a few months back when we did our Las Vegas History series on the La Rue, it was Billy Wilkerson who originally had the vision to put the Flamingo where it is today. Only after Mr. Wilkerson had financial troubles did Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel get involved. It was Billy Wilkerson who started the Flamingo project and Bugsy Siegel who would finish it. The movie Bugsy with actor Warren Beatty has a great overview of this story and era in Las Vegas.
In the early days of the Flamingo in the 1940s period, everyone from Marilyn Monroe to Clark Gable to Judy Garland made its way through the resort. By the time Bugsy Siegel was murdered, a new wave of celebrities and entertainment occurred at the then-named Fabulous Flamingo that included everyone from Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis to Sammy Davis Jr., Pearl Bailey, and singer and actress Rose Marie. Rose Marie appeared exclusively at the Flamingo starting during the Bugsy Siegel era. She only would appear at other casinos if she got permission.
Some may not know this, but in the 1960s, Kirk Kerkorian owned the Flamingo for a period of time. The Hilton Corporation took over the ownership in the 1970s. After that, both Harrah’s Entertainment and Caesars Entertainment would have ownership of the property. A 90-million-dollar makeover was spent on that resort that finished in 2018. Finally, it’s the oldest active resort still on the Las Vegas Strip. There are two others besides Flamingo which are the Sahara and the Tropicana from that era.
Below you can find a bunch of new Flamingo Las Vegas Hotel and Casino chips from our collection we just added to the website. You can purchase each chip clicking the picture below:
