"Don't Go to the Lakers": We Unraveled the Case of the Mob Hit That Saved Vegas
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Pablo Torre
4.7 • 2.6K Ratings
🗓️ 2 April 2026
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When the body of a Vegas power broker showed up in the back of a Rolls Royce in 1979, the new sports capital of America was born. Why the hell did superstar UNLV coach Jerry Tarkanian's guy really get whacked? Correspondent Sean Carey unearths police reports, a thrown fight against Sugar Ray Leonard... and a bag man on the skim who re-legitimized Sin City — and proves HBO's hit show wrong.
(Additional reporting by Kris Belman)
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is. |
| 0:06.5 | Whenever there was a big murder, especially a brutal murder like this where a guy is hog-tie and is |
| 0:12.5 | in a shot twice in the back of the head and found in a truck of his car, that sounds like a Tony Spalachro hit. |
| 0:19.2 | And if you listen to our show on Apple Podcasts, you can now watch video there as well. |
| 0:24.8 | Just update to the latest iOS, hand it over to our show page to start watching. |
| 0:29.4 | But for right now, just a quick word from our sponsors. |
| 0:43.9 | I mean, look, we just don't start many episodes with documents that say at the top, |
| 0:46.2 | first homicide investigation progress report. |
| 0:56.1 | And this is an episode that's going to be fundamentally about a dead body in the trunk of a Rolls-Royce, Sean. And thank you for being here, by the way. |
| 1:00.3 | Yeah, thank you for having. But we're talking at a point at which the city of Las Vegas has never been warmer or cuddlier. We're talking the week after the NBA's Board of Governors |
| 1:07.0 | just officially said, we are going to explore an expansion team in Las Vegas. |
| 1:12.9 | Yeah, I mean, it's become a corporate boomtown. |
| 1:16.3 | It's become a place that's one of the fastest-growing cities every year to start as casino kind of outpost. |
| 1:22.4 | It's exploded, you know, over the last few decades into, you know, this mecca, the sports |
| 1:27.1 | capital of America. Yeah, 2017, the Las Vegas decades into, you know, this mecca, this sports capital of America. |
| 1:28.3 | Yeah, 2017, the Las Vegas Golden Knights, the NHL team, they're founded. |
| 1:32.8 | 2020, the Raiders move to Vegas, the NFL team. |
| 1:36.8 | In 2008, the Oakland Days are relocating. |
| 1:39.4 | And Las Vegas just want to bid to host a final four. |
| 1:42.4 | And F1. |
| 1:43.1 | It's endless. |
| 1:44.1 | It's endless. And I think the thesis that I want to establish at the top here, Sean, is that |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Pablo Torre, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Pablo Torre and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.