1966 The Silver Nugget casino announced it would debut topless, female, 21 (blackjack) dealers during the midnight to 8 a.m. shift. This, too, was the gist of the complaints the Nevada attorney general (A.G.) received in April. Allegedly, the North Las Vegas business had hired women willing to work naked to the waist and told…
1964 When dealer Lue Dennis exited her work, Harolds Club casino, a man descended and hit the pavement in front of her. Reno resident, John Nahirney, age 79, had fallen from the Nevada casino’s fire escape into Douglas Alley; nobody ever determined whether it had been from the second or third floor. On landing, he…
1930s-1952 Salvatore “Tar Baby” Orester Terrano is one of numerous criminals whom Nevada gambling regulators approved to own a casino in the state. In May 1947, the tax commission granted the Northern Californian, then 43, a probationary, 30-day gambling license to offer roulette, craps, 21 and slot machines at the Twin States casino at Lake…
1974 It was a successful scam that cheated the Aladdin Resort and Casino out of about $250,000 (about $1.2 million today) … while it lasted. Four men had some friends take junkets to the Las Vegas property using the identities of legitimate high-rolling customers. (With a junket, the casino provides the guests’ travel, accommodations and meals…
1933-1954 His unfavorable personal opinion about gambling notwithstanding, Patrick “Pat” A. McCarran (D-Nev.) — U.S. Senator between 1933 and 1954 — acted repeatedly on the industry’s behalf. Had he not, it’s likely gaming wouldn’t have emerged as The Silver State’s greatest revenue-producing economic sector — a positive or negative, depending on one’s view. Because gambling…
1943 The British submarine, HMS Sickle, fired a succession of torpedoes during World War II, in May, sinking an enemy vessel in Cape Ferrat, southeastern France. But one of the missiles hit a cliff in Monaco, and on exploding, it blew out the top windows of the Casino de Monte-Carlo. Consequently, the ship’s captain became…
1928-Today Members of English royalty unwittingly helped launch a new South American casino toward success in the 1930s. After Chilean President Carlos Ibáñez del Campo, in 1928, authorized creation of a gambling house, Viña del Mar (translated as “vineyard of the sea”), a city on the country’s Pacific Coast, spent $6.5 million ($95.6 million today)…
1974 The Nevada Gaming Commission, the industry’s state regulatory body, amended regulations to allow employees to own stock in a casino where they worked, without having to get a gambling license, a process that involved filling out an application, being investigated and paying the requisite costs. Jerry’s Nugget in North Las Vegas was the first gambling…
1920s-1930s Presumably to gain money, power and notoriety, two men controlled gambling in Reno, Nevada during the 1920s and 1930s through violence, payoffs, intimidation, threats and other gangster techniques. The industry mostly was illegal, with some games allowed, until 1931. Their modus operandi became the example of how it was done in Nevada, a guide…
1931 When a Southern Pacific train stopped in Reno on a Friday in May at about 9:15 p.m., four passengers disembarked to squeeze in, before continuing on, a glance at gambling, which Nevada recently had legalized. The travelers left their luggage onboard. One woman, temporarily forgetting she had one with her, left her baby there,…