This law brought Meyer Lansky and his "associates" in the mafia flooding to the city to take advantage.

Owned by mobster Santo Trafficante, Jr. of Tampa, Florida, the hotel/casino was operated by Nicholas Di Costanzo, racketeer Charles Turin (aliases: Charles Tourine, Charley "The Blade"), and Santino Masselli of the Bronx NY(aliases:"Sonny the Butcher").

After it opened, George Raft was hired to be the public front for the hotel's club during his gangster days in Cuba.

[6] In 2017 the hotel was one of several sites of a suspected acoustic attack against American diplomats, described as "Havana syndrome".

[7] Reports of piercing, high-pitched noises and inexplicable ailments were investigated, but a source of the phenomenon was never definitively determined.