The Mob Museum

Last Updated on May 26, 2023

It’s really worth every penny of the admission price, and it’s a fun way to spend an afternoon.

The Mob Museum has three levels of interactive displays. Here are a few examples of how you can get involved:

The Line Up – get in a mock police lineup holding a booking card and get your picture taken.

Watch videos – Small rooms are set up throughout the museum with about 20 seats, each with a large screen showing a video about a particular topic or gangster.

There are also small screens set into the wall with interviews with the mob members who flipped to informants, old police recollections, and newscasts from the time. All very interesting and you can choose which ones you want to watch.

Take an audio tour where you can pick up an old phone and hear what the wiretaps sounded like.

The third floor shows the targets of the G-Men, and you can shoot a gun at the target as practice, but beware… it is loud!

You can even try the simulated weapons training law enforcement underwent.

The Courtroom on the second floor is an exact replica of the Kefauver Hearings in Las Vegas that put mobsters and businessmen on the stand in the same building you sit in at the Mob Museum.

On the way out, you pass by a long wall of 100 Years of Made Men. This is a fascinating way to display the most important and notorious figures in the world of American organized crime. Each photograph is accompanied by the name, crime, and a brief history of the person. Despite the name of this exhibit, there are a few women included too!

The Mob Museum is a fun couple of hours, a great thing to do in Vegas during the day, and it definitely doesn’t feel like a museum.

One of the most popular exhibits at the history museum showcases the brick wall where the Valentine’s Day Massacre occurred. The Valentine’s Day Massacre left an undeniable mark on Vegas history when seven members of the North Side Gang were lined up against the brick wall and shot by four people. The assailants still remain unknown today, and the case gained more mainstream notoriety because two of the shooters were dressed as law enforcement.

The museum offers a closer look at organized crime’s history from the beginning, with The Birth of The Mob exhibit on the third floor and Bringing Down the Mob exhibit on the first floor. Each floor offers a glimpse into a different era of mob history with real artifacts on display.

The Birth of the Mob exhibit will take you back to the 19th century when immigrants struggled to fit into society amidst poverty, discrimination, and overcrowding. Learning just how polarizing the low-paying, dangerous jobs offered to immigrants were during this era sheds a whole new light on the birth of organized crime. For many people, street gangs and organized crime were a means of survival when it seemed there was no other choice.

In the Bringing Down the Mob exhibit, you can see how the mob was infiltrated using undercover agents and new technologies. The process of bringing down the mob was done over time with intricate planning, and seeing that plan step by step is remarkable.

Learn about the origins of Al Capone, Las Vegas’ first casinos, FBI involvement, and more at the National Museum of Organized Crime.

The museum has a large gift shop, so you can find the perfect item to remember your visit. Customers can also shop the complete gift shop inventory online. The shop has all the organized crime and prohibition-era merchandise you can imagine, from toys and cocktail recipe books to collector’s items.

Choose something from the gift shop that’s related to your favorite exhibit, purchase a guest for a 1920s lover in your life, or choose a novelty item to keep you entertained.

Special Experiences

There are a few special experiences to discover at the Mob Museum. The first is a distillery tour and tasting experience that allows you to explore The Underground while you learn about Prohibition. The tour and tasting experience lasts about 30 minutes. As you tour and learn about this impactful time in history, you’ll get to sample a variety of distilled spirits. Since tasting is involved, all participants must be at least 21 years old.

Another special experience can be found in the Crime Lab exhibit. The Crime Lab experience is a 25-minute interactive look into a criminal forensic investigation. The experience is led by a museum facilitator as guests engage in hands-on exploration of the techniques used by real-life forensic investigators. DNA profiling, fingerprint analysis, death investigation, and firearms investigations are some of the topics covered during the experience.

If you want a more intense interactive experience, the Firearm Training Simulator is certainly unique. This simulator puts civilians in the shoes of officers using virtual and live-action scenarios. The simulator very closely resembles the training used with real officers preparing to go into the field.

In digital scenarios, you’re asked to make life-or-death decisions in a second, much like officers do in the field of duty. A lot of people don’t realize just how intense it can be to make those choices at the moment. By experiencing it for yourself, it becomes easier to gain some understanding of the firearm violence used by officers in the field.

Education is a vital part of the public conversation around police shootings. The Mob Museum opened this special experience with the hope of improving these conversations and improving police-community relations. This experience can be quite intense, but it is open to museum guests of all ages.

Special experiences are not included in the price of admission to The Mob Museum.

The Speakeasy is an underground bar included in the ticket price for the Museum. Go back in time to the Prohibition era of the roaring 20s, get a drink at the bar, a bite from the kitchen, and enjoy live jazz. This immersive bar is an interesting place that combines history and drinking for undeniable fun.

While you’re in the basement of the museum at the Speakeasy, stroll through another exhibit called The Path to Prohibition. This exhibit gives some insight into how the production of alcohol changed. Things became more about quantity than quantity as people moved to basements, speakeasies, and the back rooms of stores to produce and drink alcohol.

Speakeasy Menu

The Underground at the museum has a selection of cocktails, beer, wine, and shareable plates from the kitchen. Click on the menus below for a PDF version.

THE MOB MUSEUM

Daily: 9 am to 9 pm

THE UNDERGROUND SPEAKEASY AND DISTILLERY

Monday–Wednesday: Noon to 10 pm.
Thursday–Sunday: Noon to midnight

Early Closures

See a list of Early Closures

The Mob Museum is located in Downtown Las Vegas in the former federal courthouse on Stewart Avenue.