33 episodes listed below
Hitmen, regulators and a mob lawyer, fighting over the Strip.
Mobbed Up: The Fight for Las Vegas takes a different angle on the city's mob era in each of its first three seasons: a hitman's story, one troubled casino, and a defense attorney who became mayor. Named sources, from former officials to gangsters' relatives, carry the telling, and their accounts do not always agree.
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Mobbed Up: The Fight for Las Vegas is a narrative history of the mob era in Las Vegas, made by the Las Vegas Review-Journal in partnership with The Mob Museum. It is newsroom work. Interviews with people who were there sit inside narration that lays out the charges, the dates and what was at stake. Its first three seasons each come at the subject from a different side. Season 1 stays close to Frank Cullotta and Tony Spilotro, following Cullotta's crew into steep legal trouble, the FBI's effort to turn him, and Spilotro's disappearance in 1986; it also reaches the implosion of the Stardust, once at the center of a federal racketeering case. Season 2 is the story of a building. Regulators strip the Aladdin's owners of their gaming licenses, federal judge Harry Claiborne orders its gaming floor reopened, and Wayne Newton and Johnny Carson both move to buy it. Other episodes from that season take in Jimmy Hoffa as the mob's banker and Governor Robert List's push, armed with FBI wiretap transcripts, to break the mob's hold on the Strip. Season 3 narrows to one man. Review-Journal columnist John Katsalamidis sits down with Oscar Goodman, who spent decades defending reputed mobsters, served three terms as mayor and helped bring The Mob Museum into being. Goodman is generous with anecdotes. There is the Hacienda dealer who, asked by phone for the best criminal lawyer in town, offered his name; his turn playing himself in 'Casino'; and the old federal courthouse where he tried his first federal case, offered to the city for a dollar if it were restored as a museum. He is just as free with his grudges, above all against flipped witnesses and a witness protection program he says breeds perjury. The series sets those views against others. Former special attorney Stan Hunterton explains why witnesses in big cases can change their story in court, and an episode called 'Rats' places Goodman's contempt beside the code of omertà and previously unheard audio of the late Frank Cullotta. In 'Truth Challenged', Goodman listens to what reporters, a retired police officer and Meyer Lansky II said about him, then answers, sometimes bluntly. His wife, Carolyn Goodman, and former press secretary Eric Papa add views from home and City Hall. The season's final episode returns to Philadelphia: his parents, his time at Penn law, and the death of his sister. Earlier seasons had other hosts, Reed Redmond and, for Season 2, Review-Journal investigative reporter Jeff German. Hunterton, heard in every season, died in August 2023 while the third was being finalized, and his voice remains in it. Bonus episodes widen the frame, including stories from The Golden Steer, the steakhouse where Cullotta and Spilotro once sat down over dinner to plan. Strong language and murder are part of the material. What a listener gets is Las Vegas history from people who lived it and still argue about it.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants Las Vegas mob history built from local reporting and named witnesses, and who enjoys a colorful defense lawyer telling his side before his critics get their turn.
What sets it apart: Made by a Las Vegas newsroom with The Mob Museum, it takes a different angle in each of its first three seasons, from a hitman's story to one casino's fortunes to a season-long conversation with Oscar Goodman. It also plays critics' remarks back to Goodman so he can answer them on the record.
Mobbed Up chronicles the rise and fall of organized crime in Las Vegas through the eyes of those who lived it: ex-mobsters, law enforcement officials, politicians and journalists. From back alleys to bank vaults, dimly lit basements to the neon glow of the Las Vegas Strip, the Review-Journal’s Reed Redmond will guide listeners through the 20th-century criminal underworlds of Chicago, Kansas City and Las Vegas. This 11-part narrative series is produced by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, in partnership with The Mob Museum. For more information, visit www.reviewjournal.com/mobbedup.
Based on 4 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Competing witnesses and Oscar Goodman's rebuttals turn Las Vegas mob history into a sustained examination of evidence, loyalty, law, and reputation.
Mobbed Up: The Fight for Las Vegas makes organized-crime history a contest over memory, evidence, and reputation. In its third season, John Katsalamidis follows Oscar Goodman from courtroom battles involving alleged mob figures to his years as mayor, keeping constitutional…
A mob lawyer becomes mayor; you get to hear him dispute an investigator's version of a case.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Oscar Goodman's Philadelphia childhood gives the season closer its sharpest edge.
Season three ends by bringing Oscar Goodman back to Philadelphia, and the episode is at its best when it lets his family history do the work. A tight-knit household, dedicated parents, and two younger sisters shape the outline of his work ethic and his sense of fairness.
Oscar Goodman's story is framed through law, memory, and Las Vegas mob history.
Mobbed Up keeps Oscar Goodman at the center of Las Vegas history and legal conflict, and John Katsoulamidis presents him as both a forceful mayor and a longtime defense lawyer with deep ties to the city.
Oscar Goodman's road from mob lawyer to mayor comes wrapped in Las Vegas lore.
Mobbed Up frames Oscar Goodman as a larger-than-life Las Vegas figure, noting his estimate that he handled more than 300 criminal cases over 30 years and built a reputation defending major organized-crime figures.
Oscar Goodman, omerta, and the stakes of testimony anchor a compact look at mob-era justice and Philadelphia crime history.
Season 3, Episode 4 of Mobbed Up! The Fight for Las Vegas stays centered on Oscar Goodman, one of the last living legends of the mob era, while John Katsalamidis works through omerta, the code of silence that could make being a rat a death sentence.
Crime stories built from motive and consequence.
Mob history with case-file grit.
Hard lives, told without distance.
The season three finale of Mobbed Up: The Fight for Las Vegas profiles Oscar Goodman, the high-profile mob defense attorney who represented clients including Tony Spilatro, Jimmy Chagra, and Meyer Lansky before serving 12 years as Las Vegas mayor from 1999 to 2011.
Mobbed Up: The Fight for Las Vegas Season 3 Episode 7 ('Truth Challenged') confronts Oscar Goodman with assessments of his career from guests interviewed throughout the series, including author Jack Sheehan, former special attorney Stan Hunterton, LAPD investigator Mike Powell, journalist Jane Ann Morrison, Meyer Lansky's grandson Meyer Lansky II, and gaming attorney Jeff Silver.
Mobbed Up: The Fight for Las Vegas Season 3 Episode 6 covers Oscar Goodman's shift from high-profile mob defense attorney to Las Vegas mayor, focusing on the late 1990s period when Goodman grew disenchanted with a legal career that had become, in his words, purely about money.
This episode of Mobbed Up explores the rise and fall of organized crime in Las Vegas through firsthand accounts.
Mobbed Up: The Fight for Las Vegas episode "Rats" centers on omerta, Frank Collada, and Oscar Goodman's distrust of government witnesses.
Mobbed Up: The Fight for Las Vegas — Bonus: Season 2 Epilogue brings Jeff Gehrman, Ed Nigro, and former Nevada Governor Robert List to the Mob Museum for a panel on the Aladdin and Las Vegas’s organized-crime era.
This episode explores the relationship between Wayne Newton and Johnny Carson in 1980s Las Vegas, hinting at mob connections.
An interview with a former Las Vegas resident about life in the John S.
This episode discusses a phone call between Kansas City mob associates about the impact of a case on their casino operations in Las Vegas, specifically at the Stardust Hotel.
A narrative podcast exploring the rise and fall of organized crime in Las Vegas, featuring a tour of a mob-connected fortress home.
The episode recounts the opening night of the Flamingo Hotel in 1946, highlighting the involvement of organized crime figures in Las Vegas.
A narrative podcast chronicling the rise and fall of organized crime in Las Vegas through firsthand accounts.
A narrative series chronicling the rise and fall of organized crime in Las Vegas through interviews with ex-mobsters, law enforcement, and journalists.