The Stardust Hotel and Casino opened in 1958. Its owners included Cleveland racketeers Moe Dalitz, Morris Kleinman, Ben  Rothkopf, and Samuel Tucker — leaders of Cleveland’s so-called “Silent Syndicate” of Prohibition-era bootleggers turned gambling entrepreneurs. Pittsburgh resident Milt Jaffe also had a stake in the Stardust. Jaffe was the MobsBurgh connection to the Cleveland and Chicago mobs.

Stardust hotel and casino postcard, c. 1960s.

Best known in Pittsburgh for his speakeasies, nightclubs, and gambling joints, Jaffe was a well-rounded gambler who ran with Steelers founder Art Rooney Sr. “Jaffe was a partner with my dad in the gambling business,” Art Rooney Jr. told authors Rob Ruck, Maggie Jones Patterson, and Michael Weber for their 2010 book, Rooney: A Sporting Life.

Jaffe (1895-1981) cut his teeth in the Northside clubs he owned and managed. In 1930, local police and federal Prohibition agents raided Jaffe’s “Show Boat,” a floating casino docked in the Allegheny River near the Sixth Street Bridge. The cops seized liquor and gambling paraphernalia, including roulette wheels and dice.

The Pittsburgh Press, May 15, 1930.

In 1932, Jaffe made headlines when he was reportedly kidnapped at a Florida dog track. After Prohibition ended in 1933, Jaffe focused his efforts on sports gambling. He became boxer Billy Conn’s manager. That relationship lasted decades.

Jaffe became the Pittsburgh mob’s man in Vegas when the Stardust opened on the Strip. Jaffe brought Conn into the business, making him a celebrity greeter and host. Jaffe managed the business and was a well-known pit boss; Conn, the FBI reported, was a “gregarious, friendly noisy person [who] … by virtue of his name, draws a certain amount of business to this establishment.” The FBI also suspected that Conn was moving money and slot machines from Vegas to New Kensington’s Mannarino brothers.

Jaffe (and Conn) made the Stardust a popular destination for Pittsburgh residents visiting Vegas. Al Abrams, a Post-Gazette sports editor who was implicated as a Jaffe business partner, in July1963 wrote about the upcoming Sonny Liston-Floyd Patterson fight: “Headquarters for Pittsburghers here for the fight and other reasons—mainly other—is the Stardust Motel.”

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 17, 1963.

The Cleveland and Pittsburgh mob reportedly skimmed millions of dollars a year from the Stardust until its sale in 1969. Throughout the time he was affiliated with the Stardust, Jaffe welcomed all from the Steel City. “All you have to tell Pittsburgh’s Milt Jaffe, the manager of the Stardust casino, is that you’re from Pittsburgh and he’ll see that you get the best table in the house,” wrote the Post-Gazette’s Harold V. Cohen.

Jakie Lerner and woman (3rd wife, Lydia?) in Squirrel Hill, c. 1939.

Jaffe’s best treatment, though, was reserved for his Pittsburgh racketeer friends and partners. They and their families could count on getting their rooms, meals, and shows comped while at the Stardust. For about a decade, the Stardust was Pittsburgh numbers banker Jakie Lerner‘s Vegas headquarters. It was where he gambled and held court, according to former friends and relatives. Jaffe’s hospitality made it possible for Lerner to rack up massive gambling debts. In 1961, for example, Lerner owed the Stardust $24,000.

Jaffe died in 1981. Despite more than 50 years as a flamboyant organized crime figure, Jaffe’s three-paragraph obituary in the Post-Gazette only mentioned his management of Conn and work at the Stardust: “Mr. Jaffe left here 23 years ago to become associated with the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas. He had been a well-known figure in sports, political and entertainment circles.”

The Stardust outlived Jaffe by a quarter of a century. By the time it was demolished in 2017, the casino had worked its way into organized crime folklore and popular culture. Its post-Cleveland-Pittsburgh racketeering ties were fictionalized in the 1995 Martin Scorsese film, Casino.

© 2020 D.S. Rotenstein

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