1965-1966 When Nevada’s casinos switched the form of currency accepted in their $1 slot machines to a token from the nearly extinct silver coin in 1965, it had an unexpected result. People around the world wanted to collect the new pseudo-money. Since the change went into effect following U.S. Treasury and Silver State approval in…
1929-1933 Le Casino Municipal in Nice, France refused to cash Frank Jay Gould’s check so he could keep gambling there. This irked him. Gould wasn’t just a member of the bourgeoisie. Rather, he was an uber-wealthy American who’d been living and investing millions of dollars in various business ventures in the French Riviera since 1913.…
1954 Two gambling-related issues — cheating by operators and prostitution — in Nevada’s town of Searchlight came to a head at the July meeting of the state tax commission, then responsible for overseeing gaming. Regarding the roughly 300-resident community, commissioners 1) had heard rumors that its local ladies of the night mingled with customers in…
1940-1953 In 1946, Pat Mooney, chief field deputy of the Nevada Internal Revenue (IR) Bureau office, made gambler-Mobster Elmer “Bones” F. Remmer* an offer he couldn’t refuse. If the gambling club owner purchased $52,400 ($699,000 today) worth of shares in the Mountain City Consolidated Copper Co. (MCCCC) then his 1945 federal tax debt in that…
1919-Today The now infamous Joseph “Joe” Conforte, known for having owned the Mustang Ranch brothel and having fought for the legalization of prostitution, both in Nevada, found himself behind bars there in fall 1960. The avid gambler officially asked for a reprieve from his 25-day jail sentence so he could wager on the outcomes of…
“Pigeon Jailed for Gambling” New York, May 29, 1941 Two New York Police Department plainclothesmen arrested a pigeon that then was forced to spend the night in the Bronx police station. Five other such birds, on the lam, were wanted. Two men also were apprehended. The capture went down on the roof of a tenement…
The ghost of an elderly man, most likely the property’s namesake, is said to haunt Whiskey Pete’s Hotel and Casino in State Line (now Primm), Nevada, Janice Oberding, paranormal enthusiast and investigator, wrote in Haunted Las Vegas. Whether or not one believes this, Peter “Whiskey Pete” McIntyre certainly has reasons to hang around rather than…
1980 Certain Intensive Care Unit (ICU) employees at a Las Vegas, Nevada hospital were putting money down on the date the critically ill people under their care would die, and some wagerers were ensuring they’d win, by interfering with the equipment helping keep the patients alive. This was the allegation a hospital worker made in…
“Dice are the most ancient gambling implements known to man, and the most universal, having been known in nearly all parts of the world since earliest times.” —Hoyle’s Rules of Games From size to spot design, the basic elements of dice have evolved over time. Much of the changes made to U.S. dice over the…
In case you missed it, Part I is available here. 1978-1984 Paul Michael Kodelja, who was about to stand trial on January 4, 1978 for his role in the kidnapping of Reno and Polly Fruzza and the theft of $1.22 million in cash from the First National Bank of Nevada in Las Vegas, was in…