1950-1979 The Harolds Club casino, in Reno, Nevada, held an annual winter holiday party for employees at its Harolds Trapshooting Club in the neighboring town of Sparks, on the Pyramid Highway. The fêtes, which featured dancing, live music, food and alcohol, lasted 24 hours, so every worker could attend. Photo from Wikimedia Commons: by AnelGTR
1949-1979 Harolds wasn’t the only Northern Nevada club with gambling that the Smiths owned for decades. In 1950, the renowned gambling family purchased Jabberwock Gun Club, located on the Pyramid Lake Highway in what today is Spanish Springs,* and renamed it Harolds Trapshooting Club. “For more than two decades, [it] was where the elite met…
1936 When brothers, Harold S. Smith, Sr. and Raymond A. Smith, opened a small casino called Harolds Club in Reno, Nevada, the main attraction was mouse roulette “where customers bet their small change on what color or number a scampering rodent would choose to rest up from his running,” wrote Robert Laxalt in Nevada: A…