Tropicana Casino & Resort Atlantic City did not speak English, claimed Doyle's wife was a fraud, and ended his friendship with Conan Doyle. In 1929, the Ambassador was the site of the infamous Atlantic City Conference, in which a number of organized crime bosses, including Al Capone, Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano, negotiated their territorial rights after a wave of violence. In 1931, as Philadelphia gangster Mickey Duffy slept in the hotel, he was shot and killed by assailants who were never caught. The incident was dramatized in the series "Boardwalk Empire", with a character called Mieczyslaw "Mickey Doyle" Kuzik. The hotel eventually closed in the
Gambino crime family police. The New York families were outraged by this gratuitous killing that raised a large amount of public furor. Anastasia also alienated one of Luciano's powerful associates, Meyer Lansky, by opening casinos in Cuba to compete with Lansky's. Genovese and Lansky soon recruited Carlo Gambino to the conspiracy by offering him the chance to replace Anastasia and become boss himself. In May 1957, Frank Costello escaped a Genovese-organized murder attempt with a minor injury and decided to resign as boss. However, Genovese and Gambino soon learned that Costello was conspiring with Anastasia to regain power. They decided to kill Anastasia.