Location: Abandoned and derelict, the hotel rests between the "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign and McCarran International Airport at 5191 South Las Vegas Boulevard on six acres of land in Searchlight, Nevada. It was once the southernmost hotel on the Las Vegas Strip until it closed in 2006, replaced by the Mandalay Bay Hotel as the southernmost hotel.

Description of Place: Located in a quiet area of Las Vegas, the Dragna Casino was built in the old 1960s-style of hotels before they became oversized with extensive neon signs. Designed with a Western-style motif later adapted into the modern show room stage persona, the two-story structure is a 153-room hotel with a 7,700 square foot casino on the first floor equipped with vintage slot machines, craps tables, roulette games, baccarat games and other gambling vices. It was further accompanied by a buffet restaurant for 200 people and a public conference room. Before closing down, it employed a hundred and twenty-five people as casino employees, housekeeping staff, maintenance and security personnel.

Ghostly Manifestations: A dusty floor littered in trash, an old slot machine covered in years of dust, the white graying shadows of card tables sitting silently in the darkness of a deserted structure accompanied by the remote sounds of traffic beyond its brick walls, these are the sights of those who visit the old Dragna Casino. At one time, it was one of the busiest guest spots of old Las Vegas, full of tourists hoping to get rich, businessmen with young girls both decent and improper on their arms and shady characters who knew how to exploit the atmosphere for their own unscrupulous desires. Is it no wonder that the city attracts so many individuals seeking temptation, and yet, as you listen to the sounds of the old hotel, there is something else beyond the sounds of distant police sirens and traffic of air planes from the nearby airport. Visitors still think they hear voices here from the walls and hard-wrought arguments from empty darkened rooms. Even a phantom blackjack player occasionally can be seen in the shadows near one of the tables. This was the setting discovered by Matthew Dragna after he inherited the casino and arrived for the first time to see it in 2007.

"I did not enter the Dragna expecting it to be haunted and to find ghosts, but I have to admit, I'm a much bigger believer in ghosts than I was before." He remarks.

A graduate from the University of Nevada in Reno, Matt is the only known living male heir of Franco "Frank" Dragna, who owned of the casino during the Sixties until his death in 1993. Taking on the Herculean task of re-opening the once profitable hotel and casino is a task well beyond his talents, but he has hopes of the location becoming a bright new light on Las Vegas' Sunset Strip if only the ghosts would allow it.

"When you tell friends that you suddenly own a casino, they automatically think you've struck it rich, and then they want to see it." He continues. "Driving down to visit the location was not quite the experience I was hoping so, but at least I had my girlfriend and friends to soften the blow... and add as many sarcastic comments as possible.

"It was a large empty cobwebby place. The lawyer who had kept the place in probate had sent me the keys and paperwork in Reno and had told me the place needed work and cleaning, but she never told me just how bad it had really become over the years. She had also warned me about how homeless people were often living in the structure, so I was prepared for that, but what I really experienced, I couldn't blame on homeless people."

One of Matt's friends in his retinue was Gaylord "Skeeter" Guifoyle, a would-be musician, who was accompanied by his girlfriend, Paige Langham. They both had experiences in the old casino that Matt confesses he was slow to believe until it happened to him.

"Skeeter thinks of himself as musician." Matt continues. "He's not as good as he thinks he is, but he's always making comments around anyone will listen, and he was going through making comments about everything from the decor of the place, to the gangster-era in general and right down to the rigged-games in the place. Eventually, he started making these crude comments about my uncle and that lead him to commenting about Roy "The Word" Donahue, the gangster connected to this place. Now, I don't know if it was a coincidence, but he made this one really crass comment that I thought was over the line when this loose section of the ceiling tiles suddenly came loose and came right down on top of him, missing him by a few seconds. Of course, we thought it was a coincidence, and we laughed about it saying, 'Hey, I thing the Word wants you to keep your mouth shut.' but I never heard Skeeter say another thing out of step for the time we were there."

Although Matt and his friends had stayed the night before in a motel, they had hoped to stay the night in the hotel rooms of the Dragna to save money. Unfortunately, the iron gates from the casino to the hotel rooms were locked, and the keys opening them were not among the keys provided him. Matt and his friends ended up camping out in the casino area on the card tables and often spending their time exploring the buffet restaurant and employee corridors through the night. As Matt recalled:

"During the night, we'd hear the gates rattle several times. Mrs. Roberts, the lawyer, had told me that homeless people often snuck inside to sleep in the rooms, and so I tried to be vary of them, but every time we checked for someone, there wasn't anyone there. Once, I swear we were barely away from a minute and we heard them shake right behind us, but there was not a sign of anyone present. The gates were swaying back into position, but I never saw anyone."

Emily Fox is a close friend of Matt's girlfriend, Jennifer James, although she just calls her J. J. She is credited by her friends for being highly analytical and a decent card player, so when she heard about Matt's casino, she had to tag along with them to check it out with them. Joining them in the game room, she reported that as she tried sleeping on the sofa cushions of the game floor that she had seen someone. Waking up in the dim lights of the room, she had casually looked up and saw a phantom croupier standing at one of the craps tables.

"He looked young, slender in build and with a thin but full head of dark hair." She describes. "I can recall exactly what he was wearing. The red vest, dark pants, white shirt... all of it. He was standing there at the blackjack table tossing and breaking the cards, but I made the mistake of looking over to try and wake J. J. because when I looked back, he was gone. He didn't look what I expected a ghost to look like, you know, pale, transparent and glowing; he looked like a real person."

Sam Nurlbert, the court-appointed caretaker, has seen this presence several times at this exact same place. Since 1987, it has been his job to take care, watch over and expedite repairs to the hotel and casino until it came under ownership, and in that time, he has described hearing voices in the place, footsteps from empty corridors and inexplicable shot glasses around the place.

"There is still $5000 worth of liquor here under lock and key in the place." He reports. "Not even I can get to it, and I don't want to. In this creepy place, I try to keep my wits about me, but I'll be damned if I don't sometimes smell Donahue's old Cuban cigars stinking up the place or wafts of strong liquor from the office areas as if he's still alive doing business down there." He tilts his head back defiantly trying to prove he isn't scared of the place. "I don't know how many times I've come from down there and found a stray shot glass with a film of brandy or scotch still in it on a counter or game table on the way up to the casino. It's as if I just missed him, and I'm glad too because I don't run into him. He was scary enough when he was alive, and I'm sure being dead has done to sweeten that nasty disposition."

Another recurring odor Nurlbert has been reporting is that of a sweet French perfume wafting through the casino area and down the steps to the employee break rooms. It's believed this is indicative of a phantom blonde slot girl still doing her job here.

"I haven't seen her, but I've felt her presence several times." Nurlbert confesses. "There's no air-conditioning in the building, and it gets really hot in the summer time, but every once in a while there's this cold chill in the casino area that doesn't make sense."

Matt believes Skeeter and his girlfriend, Paige Langham, have experienced the ghost of the slot girl in the casino. It's rumored she can still be heard crying in the ladies room where she breathed her last.

"The lobby and casino areas are highly decorated with all these old Sixties decorations and mirrors, and there's this one mirror which you can stand in front of and see the whole casino area in it. After we got here, Paige was checking out her reflection in the mirror and said she saw another girl here in it. She described her as a young attactive blonde girl in a red vest and white blouse with dark slacks. Ironically, this was before he saw the photos from when the casino was in its prime. We were looking at all these photos in the stairway down to the office areas, and Paige suddenly pointed at one and identified her as the presence she saw. We later turned out Paige had pointed out Paige Timberlake, the slot girl who had been shot here in 1967."

Skeeter claimed her saw Timberlake's ghost several times while he was in the casino, but Matt isn't sure if he really saw her, or if he was taunting Paige with persistent claims. James "Jimbo" Harnois, another friend of Matt Dragna, briefly thought he saw her crossing from the shadows in the building. Another presence that has been reported here is that of a specter in shadow hanging over the craps table. Nurlbert has heard about this ghastly presence in the echoes from the high turn-over in previous caretakers over the years. Reportedly, the hanging victim terrified his predecessor into quitting, but he doesn't know who it could be. Speculation is it could be a former patron who was caught cheating by Roy Donahue and murdered in the building, or it could be a murdered craps dealer from the ugly 1967 incident.

"Three people were shot and killed the same night as Roy Donahue and Wachetta, his bodyguard." Matt adds. "The craps dealer would be the fifth victim in that terrible murder scene, and his presence is believed to still be lurking around his old table."

The only presence that Matt seems to have experienced for himself is that of Donahue and Wachetta themselves. The night he and his friends were camping out in the casino, he was in a deep sleep on the floor in the back of the casino when J. J. woke and realized he was choking and grasping at his neck trying to breath in his sleep. She later described it as if he was having convulsions, but when Matt woke, he said he had experienced a dream where he was being attacked by Donahue. With Wachetta standing over him, Donahue was choking Matt by the neck in the dream and was trying to tell him something, but Matt could only see Donahue's lips moving and hear muffled distorted sounds of someone talking. He couldn't understand what the murdered mobster was trying to tell him, but he was extremely grateful when he woke from the dream.

"When I woke," Matt continues. "J. J. and I discovered large red patterns on my neck and throat exactly where Donahue's hands were when he was choking me in the dream."

History: The Dragna Casino was built during the 1960s and opened on March 1, 1963. It was owned by a corporation controlled by Franco Dragna and Roy "The Word" Donahue, one of the last reputed "mob bosses" of the time. While Dragna served as the public manager of the location, Donahue controlled most of the location's business, possibly funneling money into his illegimate businesses and then laundering his money from his criminal enterprises back through the hotel. However, as local law agencies were building a case to arrest Donahue and prosecute him for reported charges of murder, racketeering, drug-trafficking and other crimes, Donahue tried seizing control of the hotel and casino out from under Dragna. On August 16, 1967, the authorities found Donahue, his bodyguard, Gil Wachetta, and three employees murdered on the premises from multiple gunshots. The hotel and casino was shut down as a result and stayed empty during the police investigation; the murder investigation lasted over twenty years with Dragna receiving fifty years to life on the charges brought against him. He left the location abandoned and closed down until his death in 2007 when he left the ownership passed down to his great-nephew, Matthew Dragna. It remains to be seen if the location is to be restored.

Identity of Ghosts: The most notorious of the Dragna's spirits is Roy "The Word" Donahue, a former New Jersey hood who worked his ranks up through the criminal underworld into becoming an almost legitimate businessman. Although he never quite shook his roots, Donahue had the mind and the experience to be an extremely successful businessman, but he had a mean streak and a drive to control every facet of his enterprises. Although he had a business partnership with Franco Dragna, the only man he trusted was Gil Wachetta, another former New Jersey hood from his hometown back east who acted as his bodyguard.

According to the book, "Sin City Secrets" by Greg Sanders, there was far more to the relationship between Dragna and Donahue to suggest they were far more than just business partners. Sanders notes that Dragna was at one time supposed to marry Donahue's cousin, but for unknown reasons, the wedding never occurred. Sanders asserts that Dragna was getting increasingly paranoid with Dragna's criminal activities and cancelled the wedding. He then converted the joint savings of the casino into silver and stashed it somewhere in the casino. The day Donahue and Wachetta showed up to seize control of the hotel and casino, it was actually more of a confrontation than a seizure of the property, but Dragna surprised them and shot the two of them and three employees in Dragna's employ.

Speculation is that the three employees were hired as spies to keep tabs on Dragna for Donahue. Joseph Fatone was a thirty-five-year-old blackjack dealer shot to the head and the stomach. Farley Sitwell was a forty-two year old roulette dealer found sprawled on the floor of the hall outside the manager's office. Twenty-six year old Mary Timberlake, a slot girl, had stumbled into the ladies room with two bullets in her where she died. Her ghost has been linked to the signs of crying in the rest room as well as the female apparition on the casino floor.

Source/Comments: Dead Man's Hand/Haunted Casino (2007) - Location and structure based on the Klondike Hotel and Casino where the movie was filmed. It also appeared in "National Lampoon's Vegas Vegas."

Activity based on phenomenon from Bally's Hotel and Casino, the Bellagio, the Flamingo Hotel and Casino, the Luxor Hotel and Casino and the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada

"Sin City Secrets" by Greg Sanders from "CSI" (2000 - Recent)

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