1888 It was the “very finest … the world has ever seen … a masterpiece,” wrote John Nevil Maskelyne in his 1894 book, Sharps and Flats: A Complete Revelation of the Secrets of Cheating at Games of Chance and Skill. It was the “most complicated, ingenious and successful contraption in the history of crooked gambling,”…
1952 “Someone very dear to you is being held and will be killed if you don’t give me the money.” This was the content of the note, a bluff, Frederick Charles Will, handed to the manager of the American Trust Company branch in San Francisco on July 28. Walter Blomberg, whose wife was at home…
1957 In 1957, Club Primadonna chartered passengers to and from San Francisco to the Reno, Nevada casino on “champagne tours.” On the September 28 return flight, delayed from 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. due to bad weather, the plane’s engines failed near the San Francisco International Airport. The pilot shouted, “Fasten your belts, loosen your…
1915 The ’49 Camp, one of the attractions at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, offered a gambling experience in which chips could be bought for money but cashed only for free-admission coupons for the other Joy Zone amusements. However, event officials soon discovered the gaming taking place was more real than pretend. Roaring Recreation This…
1951 Chief Warrant Officer Marcus Gordon Oliver, paymaster at the U.S. Naval Station Treasure Island, complained of feeling ill and left work early on Friday, April 13. The following Monday and Tuesday, he didn’t show up at the San Francisco office and hadn’t phoned. Co-workers called his home in Berkeley and got no answer. Oliver,…
1924-1932 The story of the estate of a long-ago Nevada gambler after his passing is strange and unfortunate. John Quinn was a man who’d lost and made large fortunes in gambling and mining stock deals throughout The Silver State and other parts of the West. He’d opened the first saloon-gambling house in the mining town…
1911-1912 A San Francisco, California ordinance outlawed bucket shopping in 1911 — no longer was running or visiting such an enterprise legal — and one operator didn’t like it. Henry A. Moss, a bucket shop owner and Nevada citizen, vowed to fight the new law, as it prohibited him from running his four San Francisco branches, which…
1855-1856 Charles and Arabella “Bell” Cora were a colorful, rich and well-known San Francisco couple whose lives jolted into misfortune one Saturday night in 1855. He, 39, had made his money from dealing faro in Northern California mining camps and the city during The Gold Rush. Prior, he’d broken numerous faro banks in Louisiana and…
1895 When two small boys appeared in a San Francisco, California court for shooting craps, the arresting officer testified. Then this transpired: Judge: “Are you sure the boys were shooting craps?” Officer: “Of course, I am.” Judge: “How many dice were they using?” Officer: “Four.” Judge: “Case dismissed. I would advise you to study the…