Allen Glick, owner and founder of the company that controlled the Stardust and three other casinos in the 1970s and into the 1980s, has died at 79.
Glick’s Argent Corp. owned the Stardust, Fremont, Hacienda and Marina hotel-casinos during the waning era in which the casinos were controlled by the mob. It was the skimming scandal at the Stardust, managed by Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal, that ultimately brought down the mob’s control of Las Vegas as depicted in Martin Scorsese’s 1996 movie Casino. In the film, the character of Philip Green, portrayed by Kevin Pollack, was based on Glick.
Glick, a Vietnam War veteran, always maintained he knew nothing about the skimming operation the mob ran throughout the period between 1974, when he bought the casinos, and 1983, when criminal charges were brought against 15 officials. Glick avoided prosecution in the case by cooperating with federal officials. In 1985, he told an Associated Press reporter that the Kansas City mob had threatened his life in the late 1970s, promising to murder his sons one by one if he didn’t sell Argent immediately.
Glick sold the Argent casinos to Boyd Gaming in 1980.
