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my father Davey Burman who worked for Myer Lansky and and uh Frank Costello in Murder Incorporated he came out of sing
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Singh I believe it was the end of the 30s Lansky and Costello gave him a choice what city do you want to run and
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we'll give you a million dollars and he said I just want train fair to Minneapolis and I want to run the
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rackets in the Twin Cities this of course is before gambling was legal my father's only skill was gambling so he
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went to the Twin Cities and that time it was wide open even though the police police were paid off this was the end of
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the 30s the early 40s and he ran Minneapolis for many years and he was very very good about it and good at it
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and then he went to the war he volunteered for service he came back a war hero in
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1945 and Ben seagull said to him um I have this fabulous idea I've talked Myer Lansky into putting our money into Las
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Vegas taking some money out of Cuba so in 1945 when I was two months old we came to join my father at that time he
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was partner in three downtown clubs in downtown Las Vegas the Las Vegas club the Eldorado and the Apache and Ben SEO
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wanted him to go into Partners they were all part of Lansky's group but there were many competing divisions because of
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Ben seagull's temper my father always said Beware of a man with a terrible temper he was his best friend but he
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didn't want to be partners with him but in 1946 U my Lansky talked my father into taking a partnership in the
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flamingo um I grew up in the center of the world in in my opinion of course as a child it seemed glamorous and it
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seemed like we were very important in our town was because everyone came to Las Vegas the end of the 40s the early
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50s Las Vegas was like Monte Carlo in the United States and my father was always saying oh look there's a king it
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was from Thailand or something or there's a count um I thought it was the most glamorous city in the world and all
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things seem possible celebrities of course came to our house since my father owned the hotel and my father was kind
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of they said the Henry Kissinger of Vegas he was very diplomatic and he was the one that worked out all the you know
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arguments between every everyone else um he was silent partner in all seven hotels when he died in 1957 so we were
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in the hotels constantly my father was the boss