1907-1958 Wertheimer was their name. Three of these four Michigan-born brothers became full-fledged, successful gambling operators in the first half of the 1900s, their reach spanning five states: Michigan, Ohio, Florida, California and Nevada. “As gamblers, Al, Mert and Lou became almost as well-known Detroiters as the automobile pioneers. However, the only thing the Wertheimers…
1923-1945 Reno, Nevada’s Third Ward city councilman during the 1920s and 1930s was “owned by” the local Mobsters, acted in their interests and protected them, contended Harold S. Smith, Jr., Harolds Club co-owner, in his book I Want to Quit Winners. That councilmember was William A. Justi (1873-1945). The Third Ward encompassed the “liberal” district,…
1929-1941 In the early decades of legal gambling in Nevada, Reno’s McKay/Graham combine expropriated legitimate business owners’ casinos in Washoe County. The local Mob, headed by William “Bill” Graham and James “Jim” McKay, strove to dominate and control gambling in Reno without competition. Thus, anyone who wanted to open a gambling club had to seek…
1931-1948 Gambling and cheating at gambling go together like, well, coins in a slot machine or cards in a shoe. Seemingly, they always will despite various efforts — violence, laws/rules, surveillance, firings, procedures, technology and more — to thwart chicanery. “The casino gambling business is especially susceptible to fraudulent schemes,” wrote Jerome Skolnick in House…
1920s-1930s It’s undisputed that Mobsters ruled early gambling in Reno, Nevada’s 1920s and 1930s. Two club owners who offered games of chance in the city courageously wrote, in their memoirs roughly two decades later, about the powers that were. Here are the authors and their depictions created with words: Harold Smith, Sr., I Want to…
1935-1939 The reach of Reno, Nevada’s Mobsters into gambling during their heyday allegedly extended to a small Oregon hideaway for California’s rich and famous: Currier’s Village. William “Bill/Curly” Graham and James “Jim/Cinch” McKay are said to have operated the gaming at the secluded resort with “their friends from Los Angeles,” according to Al Moe in…
Dear Subscribers, First, I’d like to thank you all for your readership and support. It means a lot. On another note, the gambling history book, A Bold Gamble at Lake Tahoe: Crime and Corruption in a Casino’s Evolution, is finally here! I offer you the first chapter below. The nonfiction book now is available for…
This is the last of a series of posts related to and leading up to the release on Dec. 6 of A Bold Gamble at Lake Tahoe: Crime and Corruption in a Casino’s Evolution by this author. The nonfiction book chronicles the often-unbelievable, conflict-filled early history of the Incline Village, Nevada-based hotel-casino that today is…
This is the third of a series of posts related to and leading up to the release on Dec. 6 of A Bold Gamble at Lake Tahoe: Crime and Corruption in a Casino’s Evolution by this author. The nonfiction book chronicles the often-unbelievable, conflict-filled early history of the Incline Village, Nevada-based hotel-casino that today is…
This is the second of a series of posts related to and leading up to the release on Dec. 6 of A Bold Gamble at Lake Tahoe: Crime and Corruption in a Casino’s Evolution by this author. The nonfiction book chronicles the often-unbelievable, conflict-filled early history of the Incline Village, Nevada-based hotel-casino that today is…