With mobster Bugsy Siegel as a silent backer, he built a casino and hotel that would suck gamblers in and retain them, setting the stage for Las Vegas's midcentury casino boom. Wilkerson's idea was an unprecedented development that helped to shape Las Vegas and the model that modern casinos operate under. So he picked the Flamingo, naming his improbable postwar venture after a gaudy bird that doesn't spend time in the Nevada desert. Billy Wilkerson, founder of the Hollywood Reporter and gambling addict, knew his audience.
