Surrounded by pawn shops and T-shirt stores, a couple of rather uneasy blocks' walk east of the Fremont Street Experience, the shabby, quasi-Moorish El Cortez has allowed half a century to slip by since its brief 1940s heyday. In 1941 it was the largest downtown hotel - albeit with a mere 59 rooms - while in 1946 it served as a stepping stone for early investor "Bugsy" Siegel en route to the Flamingo . Since 1963, however, it has been owned by Jackie Gaughan, who lives in a penthouse flat upstairs and has barely changed a thing - according to scurrilous popular legend, not even the ashtrays, let alone the carpets. Its cut-rate rooms and suites make it a haunt of budget travelers, but the bottom dollar lies in its appeal to local low-rollers. As well as offering some of the lowest-stakes gambling in town, Gaughan continues to stage regular drawings of Social Security numbers, with prizes of up to $50,000 for matching all nine digits.
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