1936 A thief took the trouble of entering a Los Angeles, California café through a skylight to rob the slot and marble games. But instead of getting the heck out after that was successful, he stayed and played the machines. Unknowingly, their noise alerted a watchman, and the “victim of his own sporting instincts” was arrested…
1948-1950 In between dispatch orders, a Las Vegas, Nevada taxi driver fleetingly picked up the announcement of horse racing information on his cab radio one day in mid-October, 1948. He informed Clark County Sheriff Glen Jones, who contacted the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in Los Angeles. The agency immediately sent to Sin City two radio…
1967 When the owners of the Ponderosa — Reno, Nevada’s newest major hotel (at 515 S. Virginia Street, now the Wild Orchid) — were about to debut gambling, with a celebratory first throwing of the dice, they ran into a snag. It seems the casino bankroll was locked in the hotel safe … along with the safe key. Two…
1960 When one rural Nevada town grew into a gambling hotspot in the mid-1900s, the gamblers in another loudly grumbled. Soon after Idaho outlawed slot machines, its last vestige of legal gambling, the sagebrush- and broomgrass-covered land 47 miles south of Twin Falls, just across the border, began to evolve into a small community —…
1941 In an override of Governor Edward Carville’s veto, Nevada legislators legalized bookmaking. The law explained that “the receiving of bets or wagers on horse races held without the state of Nevada shall be deemed to be a gambling game,” thereby making it permissible for those with a gambling license to take such bets on such events.
1969-present When executives of Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada hosted 12 people from Kansas City in 1969 as part of a gambling junket, it unexpectedly backfired. When their guests, after four days at the resort, boarded the plane to return home, Clark County sheriff’s deputies arrested all of them on charges of vagrancy because…
The BAR symbol commonly found in slot machines today evolved from the early 19th century logo of the Bell-Fruit Gum Co., whose fruit-flavored chewing gum was dispensed when the player won. The flavors were those pictured on the reels.
1956-1959 A thief absconded with $2,000 (about $17,500 today) from the Club Primadonna casino in Reno, Nevada on the first Friday of May 1956. The missing 10,000 dimes, 2,000 quarters and 1,000 half-dollars, the reserve fund for the club’s slot machines, were taken from a wooden cabinet in the basement. Only two employees had keys…
1936 An $11,800 gambling win (about $205,000 today) was the largest ever in Las Vegas to that point. The payout went to a man named A. “Blacksmith” Sweitzer after playing 21 (blackjack) for two hours, starting with a $5 wager. “He ran a series of five phenomenal blackjack hands, in which he showed two ‘blackjacks’ —…
1974-1983 A revolt of the performers — athletes in this case — threatened to close a popular attraction at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas — jai alai. Unique to the Strip at the time, it was designed as part of the Nevada resort’s entertainment package to lure visitors into the casino. Jai alai…