Cashing In, Out on Slot Machine Route

1951-1954 In October 1951, Southern California resident, Wayne H. Teipel, responded to a “For Sale” ad in the Los Angeles Examiner for a slot machine, pinball game and phonograph route business in Las Vegas, Nevada. The income touted was $1,000 a week (about $9,600 today) and the price, $28,500 ($276,000). Ray Wherrit of San Luis…

Gamblers Oppose Daylight Saving Time

1949 Casino owners balked when the question of going on daylight saving time (DST) arose in Nevada in 1949. Gamblers’ Outcries Charles Mapes, owner of the Mapes hotel-casino in Reno, made a few arguments: • “It’s difficult to put on a floor show at 9 p.m. with the sun just going down. A spotlight can’t…

Gambling Affront: Elko Disses Jackpot

1960 When one rural Nevada town grew into a gambling hotspot in the mid-1900s, the gamblers in another loudly grumbled. Soon after Idaho outlawed slot machines, its last vestige of legal gambling, the sagebrush- and broomgrass-covered land 47 miles south of Twin Falls, just across the border, began to evolve into a small community —…