Though long since overshadowed by a host of nouveau-riche newcomers, the Stardust can look back on a career as a major Las Vegas player. A glittering child of the space age, it burst on the scene in 1958 as the self-proclaimed largest hotel in the world, no more than two stories high perhaps, but boasting more than a thousand rooms. Cascades of neon color erupted from its Sputnik-inspired Strip facade; it had its own rodeo facility, and soon acquired a Grand Prix racetrack as well.
However, all that dazzling starlight served to conceal some very murky figures lurking in the background. Its true owner at the outset was said to be Chicago mobster Sam Giancana, and control passed during the 1970s to the Midwest Mafia, based in Kansas City. A Federal raid in 1976 revealed the Stardust 's role at the heart of the largest ever "skimming" operation in Las Vegas, in which a concealed vault was used to whisk away an estimated $4 million per year in unrecorded slot machine takings. Similar scandals erupted periodically well into the 1980s; Martin Scorsese's 1995 movie Casino tells the story in entertaining detail.
Under the ownership of the Boyd Corporation, whose other properties include Sam's Town , the Stardust is these days entirely legitimate. Its original frontage was supplanted 25 years ago by the more abstract but no less spectacular pink neon starburst sign that still stands today, albeit toned down by a very staid choice of lettering. With its windows tinted a rich, deep purple, the main hotel block looks comparatively upmarket, though the effect is spoiled by the low-rise casino sprawl in front.
For its first 33 years, the Stardust was renowned as the home of the French nude revue Lido de Paris , Las Vegas's longest-running show of all time. That reputation led to its use as the fictional location for the movie Showgirls . Entertainment nowadays has become rather more staid, with the Wayner himself making all-too-regular appearances at his namesake Wayne Newton Theater. Otherwise, in the absence of the usual modern frivolities and distractions, people tend to visit the Stardust specifically in order to gamble. The very large, high-tech Race and Sports Book, which has its own separate entrance straight off the Strip at the northern end of the property, stages regular $10,000 football and handicapping contests.
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