1925 Newton “Newt” Crumley, Sr., Goldfield, Nevada resident, met with William Doyle in September to discuss purchasing from him the Commercial Hotel in Elko, but they couldn’t agree on a price. Doyle wanted $5,000 more than what Crumley wanted to pay. No deal was done. A month later, they reconnoitered and, still haggling, flipped a…
1960s-1970s More than a half-decade after the invention of the slot machine in 1887, liquor-filled decanters in their likeness became the rage, particularly at casinos. The version (in the photo), adorned with 24-carat gold, contained Ezra Brooks, 12-year-old, 90-proof Kentucky whiskey. It was 8.5 inches tall, 4.5 inches across.
1911-1914 When Pancho Villa was commanding his armies in Northern Mexico, he chose for his headquarters the richly appointed Tivoli, then the largest casino in Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. Photo from El Paso Public Library: By Otis A. Aultman
1954 Due to the 1953 scandal in Wells, Nevada, the Nevada Tax Commission members in June 1954 prohibited open gambling in the town of Jackpot in The Silver State, just south of its border with Idaho, along U.S. Route 93. They worried that gambling 1) couldn’t be policed easily in that remote area and 2)…
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…
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…
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.
The BAR symbol commonly found in slot machines today evolved from the early 19th century logo of the Bell-Fruit Gum Company, whose fruit-flavored chewing gum was dispensed when the player won. The flavors were those pictured on the reels.
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’ —…
Today A casino is a place that houses and facilitates various gambling forms, according to the English, but a casino or kasino is an officers’ mess hall to the Germans, Spanish and others. In Italian, the language of origin, the word derives from casa (house) and translates to little house. Casino first referred to a…