1825-1958 The hottest game in the Old West between 1825 and 1915, faro is pretty much extinct in the United States today. If you’ve never heard of it — and you aren’t alone there — it’s a fast-action, one-deck card game in which innumerable players compete against a bank rather than one another. (Learn the…
1940s A spate of “roadside zoos” opened along various Nevada highways, typically in rural areas, during the late 1940s. The owners were hustlers who lured unsuspecting tourists onto their grounds with the promise of seeing exotic birds, reptiles and/or wild animals then swindled them out of money via games of chance. The ruse often involved…
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
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…
1970-1974 During the years Kings Castle in Incline Village, Nevada at Lake Tahoe was open, management routinely used polygraphs on employees, particularly for questions about cheating, theft and employment. Photo from freeimages.com: “No Lies”
Early 1900s In The Silver State (Nevada), casinos hired men for the sole job of picking up dice that rolled off the game tables. Only these workers were allowed to touch the cubes to keep cheaters from swapping them with crooked ones.
1930 Silent film star, Clara Bow, spent one September evening in 1930 playing illegal gambling games at a Lake Tahoe, Nevada casino. Both winning and losing at roulette, craps, 21 and the dice game, chuck-a-luck, she requested a high roll. The Cal-Neva Lodge obliged, allowing her to play as high as $300 per roll or…
1932-1967 Inmates strutted around the Nevada State Prison yard and jingled the brass coins or tokens, in their pockets, to boast their elevated status as winning gamblers of the pen. Beginning in 1932, convicts ran an open casino on the grounds of this maximum security facility in Carson City. The warden allowed and didn’t hide…