1946: Bugsy opens the Flamingo

History.com has this for 26 December:

On 26 December 1946, in Las Vegas, Nevada, mobster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel opened The Pink Flamingo Hotel & Casino at a total cost of six million dollars. The forty-acre facility wasn’t yet complete, and Siegel was hoping to raise some revenue with the grand opening.
Well-known singer and comedian Jimmy Durante headlined the entertainment, with music by Cuban band leader Xavier Cugat. Some of Siegel’s Hollywood friends, including actors George Raft, George Sanders, Sonny Tufts, and George Jessel were in attendance.
The grand opening, however, was a flop. Bad weather kept many other Hollywood guests from arriving and, because gamblers had no rooms at the hotel, they took their winnings and gambled elsewhere. The casino lost $300,000 in the first week of operation.
Siegel and his New York City “partners” had invested a million dollars in a property already under construction by Billy Wilkerson, owner of the Hollywood Reporter as well as some very popular nightclubs on the Sunset Strip. Wilkerson had wanted to recreate the Sunset Strip in Las Vegas, with a European-style hotel with luxurious rooms, a spa, health club, showroom, golf course, nightclub, and an upscale restaurant. But he soon ran out of money due to the high cost of materials immediately after the war.
Siegel, who held a largest interest in the racing publication Trans America Wire, was drawn to Las Vegas in 1945 by his interest in legalized gambling and off-track betting. He purchased The El Cortez hotel for $600,000, and later sold it for a $166,000 profit.
Siegel and his organized crime buddies used the profits to 'influence' Wilkerson to accept new partners. Siegel took over the project and supervised the building, naming it after his girlfriend Virginia Hill, whose nickname was The Flamingo because of her red hair and long legs.
Two weeks after the grand opening, the Flamingo closed down. It re-opened on 1 March 1947, as The Fabulous Flamingo. Siegel forced Wilkerson out in April and, by May, the resort reported a profit, but it wasn’t enough to save Siegel.
Convinced that Siegel wasn’t giving them a “square count”, it is widely believed that his partners in organized crime had him killed while he was reading the paper on 20 June 1947, at his Beverly Hills, California mansion. Hill was in Paris, France, having flown the coop after a fight with Siegel ten days prior. The crime remains unsolved to this day.
Surviving a series of name and ownership changes, the hotel is known today as The Flamingo Las Vegas, owned and operated by Harrah’s Entertainment. The property offers over three thousand hotel rooms and a seventy-thousand-square-foot casino.

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