1958 Myrton “Mert” C. Wertheimer was murdered, William “Bill/Curly” J. Graham ordered the hit and Frank “Frankie” Frost carried it out. This was hearsay from Los Angeles Mobster and made man, Aladena James “Jimmy/The Weasel” Fratianno, as documented in Ovid Demaris‘ biography of Fratianno, The Last Mafioso. Page 173 (hardback version) contains a conversation relayed…
1937 After Florida legalized slot machines in 1935, casino operator Myrton “Mert” Wertheimer, 53, devised a way to also get craps and roulette, unlawful at the time, allowed under the new rule. (Previously, only dog and horse race betting were legal, as of 1931.) Capitalizing on Wording Wertheimer, who ran the gambling at the Royal…
1907-1958 Wertheimer was their name. Three of these four Michigan-born brothers became full-fledged, successful gambling operators in the first half of the 1900s, their reach spanning five states: Michigan, Ohio, Florida, California and Nevada. “As gamblers, Al, Mert and Lou became almost as well-known Detroiters as the automobile pioneers. However, the only thing the Wertheimers…
1929-1941 In the early decades of legal gambling in Nevada, Reno’s McKay/Graham combine expropriated legitimate business owners’ casinos in Washoe County. The local Mob, headed by William “Bill” Graham and James “Jim” McKay, strove to dominate and control gambling in Reno without competition. Thus, anyone who wanted to open a gambling club had to seek…
1954 “If the Streeter suggestion should catch fire and the state took over gambling, it would be the damnedest experiment tried in the United States, and Nevada would have more hoodlums per square block than it has jackrabbits per square mile,” read a non-bylined Nevada State Journal op-ed piece, referring to the idea of Jack…
1951 The Irish tenor, Dennis Day, was about to begin a singing engagement at the downtown Riverside hotel-casino in Reno, Nevada in the summer of 1951. Day is known for his appearances on the Jack Benny comedy show and his own television show, A Day in the Life of Dennis Day. To promote his performances,…