Before Las Vegas dominated gambling headlines, Reno was a mob city — but on very different terms.

While national attention focused on Las Vegas, Reno developed its own casino industry and criminal underworld, shaped by local control, regional crime networks, and a smaller, more tightly connected business community.

Mob City: Reno explores how organized crime operated in northern Nevada, who controlled Reno’s early casinos, and how outside mob figures eventually joined local operations.

This book reveals:

• How Reno became a major gambling destination

• Who really controlled Reno’s early casinos

• How local mob operations differed from Las Vegas

• Which famous mobsters were involved — and why

• Why Reno’s criminal structure was both more stable and more vulnerable

Often overshadowed by Las Vegas, Reno’s story offers critical insight into how organized crime adapted to different environments within the same state. It was Reno where bank robbers like Alvin Karpis, kidnappers like Ma Barker and her sons, and even “Baby Face" Nelson came to stay, play, and enjoy the show. Reno had it all, and they had their own Mob who controlled the vices, legal or otherwise.

Mob City: Reno is part of the Nevada gaming and organized crime history series and pairs naturally with Vegas and the Mob and Vegas and the Chicago Outfit.

This is the mob story most people have never heard — and one that explains why Nevada gaming evolved the way it did.