David Clary's "Gangsters to Governors"

David Clary is a news editor at The San Diego Union-Tribune.

Here he dreamcasts an adaptation of his new book, Gangsters to Governors: The New Bosses of Gambling in America:

My nonfiction book, Gangsters to Governors: The New Bosses of Gambling in America, explores how and why states have encouraged and promoted the expansion of legalized gambling in America. The book, published by Rutgers University Press, touches on the evolution and expansion of lotteries, tribal gaming, commercial casinos, sports gambling, daily fantasy, racetrack betting, and much more.

My six years of research and writing led me to a rogue’s gallery of colorful characters, from John “Old Smoke” Morrissey, the Irish-born gangster who built Saratoga into a gambling haven in the nineteenth century, to Bugsy Siegel, the gangster who completed the Flamingo hotel-casino in Las Vegas only to be assassinated months later. Daniel Day-Lewis would be outstanding as Morrissey because he portrayed his arch-rival Bill the Butcher Poole in the film Gangs of New York. For Siegel, Tom Hiddleston would be able pull off the lean athleticism and charm leavened with the necessary streak of menace.

Other key roles and the actors who would fill them:

Howard Hughes: Leonardo DiCaprio, who captured his paranoia in The Aviator

Benny Binion: Woody Harrelson, who would convey the Texan's good-ole-boy roughness

Steve Wynn: Michael Douglas, who has that appealing bad-boy charisma

Donald Trump: Well, who else but Alec Baldwin?

Visit David Clary's website.

--Marshal Zeringue