Quick Fact – Cheating Course
1961 A Southern Nevada business offered to teach individuals, for a flat fee of $3,000 ($24,000 today), various ways to successfully cheat slot machines. Photo from freeimages.com
Loophole in the Law
1955 When Nevada legislators legalized gambling in 1931, they didn’t consider one significant caveat. The omission came to light in January 1955 when an industrious Las Vegas casino patron was arrested for using Mexican 10 centavo coins in 25 cent slot machines — an act called slot slugging. Apparently, the coins fit perfectly. The judge…
Quick Fact – Siegel’s Estate
1955 When presumed-to-be-wealthy mobster, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, was slain at age 41, the estate he left was worth $35,609 (about $314,550 today). Before his murder, Siegel co-financed and oversaw completion of the Flamingo hotel-casino in Las Vegas, Nevada but ran up its development costs by several million and began bouncing checks. In his earlier days,…
Lawmen Run Amok in Rawhide
1908 Two deputy sheriffs in the mining camp of Rawhide, Nevada,* were on the take. For a regularly paid fee, they allowed establishments to operate legal games without a license and/or run banned ones as well. Sometimes they allowed gambling houses that paid heavy license fees on some games to conduct others without paying for a…
Quick Fact – Peephole Vetting
1931 Even after wide-open gambling became legal in Nevada, many of the exclusive clubs continued to vet the people who wanted entry. Someone inside the establishment would look through the peephole in the door and if he spotted a familiar face in the group, he’d allow them in. Photo from freeimages.com: The Man Who Spies…
Americans Head South Para Apostar
1913-1929 With various state bans on gambling and, later, a nationwide prohibition against liquor, many Americans, particularly wealthy Southern Californians, traveled to casinos in Mexican border cities to play and imbibe. “The great hegira* is in, and already these towns are filled to the limit with throngs of the thirsty, willing to pay big sums for…
Quick Fact – Store Slots
1967 Nevada legislators proposed a bill that would disallow any future installation of slot machines in grocery and drug stores. It died, though, in the Senate Taxation Committee.
The Original Black Book
1960 A cheap, spiral notebook held great power in Nevada’s gambling world for decades. It contained known U.S. mobsters whose underworld statuses and histories were such that the state gambling authorities didn’t want them anywhere near The Silver State’s casinos. This was a problem as these undesirables frequented major gambling operations in the state. Nevada…
Quick Fact – Gambling Minors
1888 When select games of chance were legal in Nevada, so many youths under age 21 regularly were frequenting the gambling clubs (which was illegal) that the police threatened to make an example of some of them. Photo from freeimages.com, by Craig Matchett