The Haunted Flamingo Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas: Bugsy Siegel's Ghost

The Flamingo opened on December 26, 1946, and it is the oldest resort still operating on the Las Vegas Strip. It is also the hotel most closely tied to the mob’s arrival in Las Vegas. Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel took over the project from Hollywood publisher Billy Wilkerson, watched the budget climb to around $6 million, and was shot dead at his girlfriend Virginia Hill’s Beverly Hills home on June 20, 1947. The killing has never been solved.

Siegel is the ghost almost everyone talks about here. Guests describe him in the Presidential Suite, by his memorial plaque in the garden near the wedding chapel, and as a dark figure at the foot of the bed. The building he knew is gone, demolished in 1993, but the stories have stayed with the site. Today the Flamingo is a 3,460-room Caesars Entertainment resort with a free four-acre wildlife habitat, and it is one of the better-value places to stay in the middle of the Strip.

The ghosts of the Flamingo

Bugsy Siegel in the Presidential Suite

The best-known Flamingo ghost story is about the hotel’s Presidential Suite. In October 1999 the Las Vegas Sun reported that ghost researchers said dozens of guests had seen Siegel’s ghost in the suite, and that the Wall Street Journal had listed it among the scariest hotel rooms in the country. The Sun added a twist: the original suite had been torn down years earlier, and guests said the ghost had simply moved into the new penthouse Presidential Suite.

Ghost tour companies add details: a man in a smoking jacket, seen near a green bathroom suite that Siegel is said to have chosen himself. Older versions of the story talk about gold fixtures from his apartment. None of this can be checked, because the rooms he used no longer exist, but it is the story people come to hear.

The figure by the memorial

When the Flamingo built its pool and wildlife habitat in the 1990s, it added a memorial plaque to Siegel in the garden near the wedding chapel. Guests and ghost tour guides say a figure has been seen standing beside it in the evening, and some believe he lingers here because the garden sits close to where his original hotel stood. A separate historical marker on the property, put up by the Flamingo Hilton, tells the story of the original building and its “Bugsy Suite”.

The wedding chapel

Some local TV round-ups place Siegel in the wedding chapel too, repeating a story that the chapel was built on the site of his old apartment. The original hotel and his fourth-floor penthouse were demolished in 1993, so the exact spot is hard to pin down, but the story keeps the chapel on haunted lists.

Whispers and a dark figure at night

Away from Siegel himself, guests have described being woken by a dark figure standing at the foot of the bed, whispering voices with nobody in the room, and doors opening and closing on their own. Ghost City Tours also mentions the sound of a pool game being played in empty rooms. These are guest stories, and the hotel does not comment on them.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• Presidential Suite: The penthouse suite where most Siegel sightings are placed. It is not a standard bookable room type.
• Wildlife Habitat and garden: Free to visit, open daily from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., with Chilean flamingos, pelicans and koi. The Siegel memorial plaque is in this garden area.
• Garden wedding chapel: Part of the garden; linked by legend to Siegel’s old apartment.
• Standard tower rooms: Where guests have described whispers and a figure at the foot of the bed.

History of Flamingo Las Vegas Hotel & Casino

The Flamingo began as Billy Wilkerson’s idea. Wilkerson, founder of The Hollywood Reporter, bought the land on what was then Highway 91 in 1945 for $84,000 and planned a stylish resort for Hollywood visitors. Short of money, he took investment from East Coast mob figures in early 1946, and Siegel, a partner of Meyer Lansky, soon made himself the man in charge on site. The original budget of about $1 million ballooned to about $6 million under Siegel, partly from wartime shortages and partly, his partners came to suspect, from skimming.

The casino opened on December 26, 1946, before the hotel rooms were ready. Rain kept Hollywood guests away, the tables lost money and the casino closed on February 6, 1947. It reopened on March 1, 1947, with the hotel finished, and Siegel had pushed Wilkerson out by then. The name is usually said to come from Virginia Hill’s nickname, though another account credits the flamingos at Hialeah racetrack. The resort turned a profit in May.

Siegel did not live to see much of it. On the night of June 20, 1947, he was shot through the window of Hill’s home in Beverly Hills. No one was ever charged. Siegel’s old penthouse on the fourth floor was built with thick concrete walls, and a historical marker on site says the suite had five exits, including a hidden ladder to a tunnel that led to a getaway car.

Ownership changed several times after the mob years. Kirk Kerkorian owned it in the late 1960s and sold it to Hilton, which ran it as the Flamingo Hilton. The original low-rise hotel, known as the Oregon wing, closed on October 17, 1993, and was demolished that December to make room for a 1995 expansion, which added the pool area and wildlife habitat with Siegel’s memorial plaque. The resort has belonged to Caesars Entertainment and its predecessors since the late 1990s, and its rooms were renovated in 2012 and again in 2017 and 2018.

The Flamingo is also a film location. In the 1960 Ocean’s 11, it is one of the five casinos the Rat Pack robs, and it appears again in a flashback in the 2001 remake.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Visit the Wildlife Habitat in the evening, before it closes at 8 p.m., to find the Siegel memorial near the garden chapel.
• Look for the historical marker about the original 1946 hotel and its “Bugsy Suite” near the garden chapel.
• The Presidential Suite is not sold like a regular room. Ask the hotel directly if you want to inquire about it.
• Pet-friendly rooms are available if you travel with a dog.
• Combine your stay with the El Cortez on Fremont Street, which Siegel co-owned in 1945 and 1946.
• For more of the city’s ghost lore, see our guide to haunted places in Las Vegas.

More haunted hotels nearby

• Horseshoe Las Vegas (formerly Bally's): across the boulevard; the former MGM Grand and its 1980 fire
• El Cortez Hotel & Casino: Siegel’s earlier Las Vegas casino, open since 1941
• Luxor, Las Vegas: the pyramid and its curse legends
• All haunted hotels in Las Vegas: the full Las Vegas list
• Haunted hotels in Nevada
• Haunted hotels in Las Vegas

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the hotel’s own website, historic records and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as guests, staff and local historians tell them. Read how we rate haunted hotels.

• Wikipedia: Flamingo Las Vegas
• Las Vegas Sun: Bugsy Siegel's ghost recalled for Halloween (1999)
• HMdb: The Historical Flamingo Hotel marker
• Ghost City Tours: The Ghost of Bugsy Siegel
• Vegas Ghosts: The Flamingo Las Vegas
• Las Vegas Magazine: There's a wildlife habitat on the Strip (2026)
• KTNV: 13 places you might see ghosts in Las Vegas

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