Although Texas-born Lester B. “Benny” Binion (1904-1989) no longer is with us, he remains a legend among Las Vegas casino owners and operators — gamblers, in industry parlance. Iconic even in his appearance — large in girth and ever clad in a cowboy hat and boots — Binion was complex. The dichotomous traits he embodied…
1956 When auditors for Nevada reviewed its books, they discovered the El Rancho casino on the Las Vegas Strip had underpaid the requisite gambling taxes over nine quarters by $39,000 ($350,500 today). Despite the claims of owners Beldon Katleman, et. al. that they believed they’d paid the proper amount, tax commissioners assessed a 100% penalty,…
1964 The Dunes in Las Vegas, Nevada switched from writing off unpaid IOUs to claiming them as income, allegedly to keep Internal Revenue Service agents from harassing its customers — asking guests in the hotel if they paid what they owed. On its fiscal 1965 income tax return, the hotel-casino reported as income $1.3 million…
1945-1955 In the late 1940s, three bookies — or commissioners, as they preferred to be called — operated on California’s Sunset Strip in West Hollywood under the name, Golden News Service. Hy Goldbaum, George Capri and Edward Cooke, all in their late 40s or early 50s at the time, specialized in assuming large bets that…
1952 When Ernest J. Primm owned the Monterey Club, a poker house in Gardena, California (a Los Angeles suburb), he claimed on his state income taxes the losses of his shills, up to $500 ($4,500 today) a month, as expenses or losses — illegitimate deductions. Seven years later, it caught up with him. The state’s Franchise Tax…