Quite awhile ago I did an article for the club magazine, and touched on Billy Wilkerson and La Rue....here's an excerpt

The Sands
The seventh resort on the Strip

La Rue Restaurant and Casino
Remember Billy Wilkerson? You know, the man who really started building The Flamingo—even though Ben “don’t call me Bugsy” Siegel usually gets all the credit. In part one of this article, the segment on The Flamingo, the last thing I said about Billy was “Billy would retain one-third ownership and operational control.” That was the plan, but that’s not exactly what happened…

Billy might have been muscled out of the Flamingo, or he might have been bought out, or maybe he just got tired of dealing with Ben Siegel’s idiosyncrasies and temper tantrums. Whatever happened, Billy was out of the Flamingo, but he still wanted a club in Las Vegas. In December of 1950, Billy Wilkerson opened LaRue Restaurant and Casino, possibly with Jack LaRue and/or Nola Hahn as partners. LaRue was on Highway 91, between the Desert Inn and the Flamingo; it was licensed for slots, blackjack, craps and roulette.

Along comes Max Kufferman, who wants to build a resort on the Las Vegas Strip. He buys LaRue from Billy Wilkerson, but he can’t get a license from the Nevada Gaming Board. He allegedly sells LaRue to Jake Freedman (sometimes spelled Friedman) and his partners Jack Entratter, Carl Cohen, and Ed Levinson.

THE SANDS
In 1952, Freedman and his partners brought in architect Wayne McAllister to design the new resort. Rather than building from the ground up, McAllister’s design remodeled and added on to LaRue. In August, Freedman went before the gaming board and applied for his casino license. Initially he was denied a license, because of his association with Max Kufferman, but eventually was able to convince the board that he wasn’t a front for Kufferman. Freedman had intended the property to open in late October or early November, but the licensing problems delayed the opening.

Link to the magazine, on the club website (article is on page 27) https://www.ccgtcc.com/documents/1180/news/Volume-20-Number-4/index.aspx