1932 Bizarrely, Clarence Shockey’s stint as a Nevada gambling club manager was short. Here’s what happened: Week One July 11, Monday: The Reno City Council approved a gambling license for Clarence, who’d worked in real estate and oil drilling beforehand, both unsuccessful ventures. July 12, Tuesday: Clarence obtained a building permit to remodel the…
1947 Hollywood actress Mildred Jenkins testified in court about her wedding night in Nevada. After marrying A.Q. Bonner, Jr., a Northern California rancher, the two had breakfast and went to a casino. “A.Q. lost all his money then insisted I give him mine because, he said, it belonged to both of us now,” she said.…
1972-1973 Ladies and gentlemen, the story you are about to read is true. No names have been changed, as there were no innocents. This is the city, Stateline, Nevada. It’s the gambling mecca of Lake Tahoe. Most people visit it to recreate, but some go there to commit a crime. It was Tuesday, September 19,…
1974-1975 For many Japan-based businessmen, gambling trips to Caesars Palace in Las Vegas turned nightmarish. Kikumaru Okuda, 46, also a resident of the Land of the Rising Sun, and a film producer with Toho Film Company, organized numerous trips on behalf of the Nevada hotel-casino, at the request of its president, Harry Wald. Caesars Palace paid…
1956 The gambling licensees of the Dunes and Silver Slipper casinos applied to restart bingo on the premises, but the Nevada Gaming Commission denied their request, stating that the return of the game to the Las Vegas Strip would be detrimental to the area. This was because in prior years when bingo had been permitted, the…
1950 In late 1948, Hollywood movie producer, Frank N. Seltzer — known for the movies, Jungle Patrol and Let’s Live Again, which debuted that same year — began research for his next project, 711 Ocean Drive, starring Edmond O’Brien and Joanne Dru. He intended for it to expose the “bookie racket,” or “wire service as…
1947-1953 Harolds Club bustled on Christmas Eve in 1947 with revelers enjoying the gambling and camaraderie when an unexpected event instantly silenced the din. Panic followed. Since the previous morning, Reno, Nevada police had been trying to locate a suspect: white male, approximately 20 years old, 5 feet 8 inches, 150 pounds. He’d robbed two…
1946 Some Las Vegas, Nevada casinos handed out women’s nylons as slot machine and tango game* prizes. When the city’s board of commissioners found out, they banned it, threatening repeat offenders with losing their gambling license. It wasn’t the hosiery the officials took offense to; it was the casinos offering merchandise to encourage the playing…
1955-1966 Harry Chon, licensed operator of the gambling operations at the Old Cathay Club* in Reno, Nevada, found himself in an uncomfortable spot, under pressure from two parties, in 1956. The story begins about a year earlier, when two other men, Horace Fong and his godfather, Moon Wah, applied unsuccessfully for a gambling license for…
1937-1939 A ticket would cost $1 (about $17 today). A drawing would be held at least every 90 days, maybe monthly if demand was great enough, on the last Saturday night of the month. It would alternate between all Nevada towns, starting with Reno, then Las Vegas. This was the proposal for a Nevada lottery…