Visit Gambling.com’s Top 3 Classic Las Vegas Casino Sites Featured In Movies

The Rat Park-era version of Las Vegas that mostly vanished decades ago, along with the Mob, is visible in Hollywood movies featuring casinos from that period, highlighting stars like Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and Ann-Margret, and Robert De Niro.

A small number of casinos from then are still around. Some have been reconfigured, but all give visitors a taste of what the city was like during the Las Vegas golden era preserved in classic movies. These movies include Sinatra and his Rat Pack pals in “Ocean’s 11,” Elvis and Ann-Margret in “Viva Las Vegas,” De Niro in "Casino" and many more.

The same is true of British casinos featured in popular movies. This is especially the case regarding one casino in London where you can step inside the property famous for its connection to fictional spy James Bond.

In this video episode of “The Edge,” Gambling.com’s Larry Henry reporting from the U.S. and Adam Arbon from the U.K. point you to some of these casinos.

Top 3 Films Featuring Classic Las Vegas Casino Sites

In "The Edge" video, Henry offers his list of the Top 3 movies featuring classic Las Vegas casino sites you can visit today.

The Top 3 movies are “The Invisible Wall,” “Ocean’s 11" and “Casino.”

While “Viva Las Vegas” didn’t make the Top 3, it warranted a mention on “The Edge” in setting up the following:

1. “The Invisible Wall” (1947): This movie, filmed while gangster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel was alive, shows the Flamingo inside and out exactly as Siegel knew it when he first opened the casino in late 1946. A few months after filming wrapped, Siegel was shot to death in Beverly Hills in an incident that remains unsolved to this day.

The Flamingo is still at the same location on the Las Vegas Strip. While none of the original buildings remain, you can step into today’s Flamingo and roll the dice at a craps table like the characters in the movie.

Bonus: Carl Cohen, a casino executive who once hit Sinatra so hard he knocked the caps off a couple of the singer's teeth, appears in the movie at a Flamingo craps table.

2. “Ocean’s 11” (1960): These days, the Venetian resort is located on the Strip where the Sands hotel-casino once stood. The Sands is one of several casinos featured in this heist movie.

Decades ago, the Rat Pack stars featured in the movie were photographed in front of the Sands and its iconic sign. After the Sands was closed permanently in 1996 and demolished, the Venetian installed a set of replica footprints in the sidewalk about where Sinatra and his pals (Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop) were standing when that famous picture was taken.

Bonus: The Sahara hotel-casino and the Flamingo, two of the resorts featured in the movie, have been renovated but remain in operation.

3. “Casino” (1995): In the opening scene of this classic Martin Scorsese-directed movie, De Niro, portraying a character based on Mob associate Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal, walks out of a casino door to his car, which blows up with him in it.

The real car bombing, which Rosenthal survived, occurred east of the Strip in front of what was a Tony Roma’s restaurant. However, the scene in the movie was filmed at the Main Street Station hotel-casino. That resort is still in operation.

The casino that the De Niro character operates for the Mob, called the Tangries in the movie, is a fictional resort based on the Stardust. The Stardust has since been demolished. In June 2021, Resorts World Las Vegas first opened at that location on the Strip. A few replica Stardust signs are on display inside Resorts World.

Bonus: A casino restaurant featured during a different scene is still in operation under a different name at the Plaza hotel-casino downtown. That restaurant, now called Oscar’s Steakhouse, is named for Oscar Goodman, a Mob attorney and former Las Vegas mayor. Inside the steakhouse is a statue of Goodman and the Chicago Outfit’s Tony “The Ant” Spilotro. In the movie, Joe Pesci portrays a character based on Spilotro.

Note: The Mob Museum in Las Vegas recently has unveiled an exhibit titled “Filmed in Las Vegas: America’s Playground on the Silver Screen.”