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Steeped in Las Vegas legend, the El Cortez is not only the longest continuously-operating casino in the city but the first purchased by Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel. The New York transplants quickly sold it to finance the ill-fated Flamingo, but left behind a surprise for future El Cortez proprietor Jackie Gaughan—one “Fat Irish” Green, who had earned permanent free residence by returning a suitcase full of money to Lansky after Siegel’s murder. Despite this one-room handicap, Gaughan made the El Cortez a success and became one of legit Vegas’s pioneers and pillars. Gaughan sold his interest in the casino to his long-time partners the Epstein family in 2008, but still lives in the penthouse and plays poker with customers every day. Like Gaughan himself, the El Cortez’s façade remains unchanged, one of the last true holdovers of the old Las Vegas.