1934 After hiding somewhere in the building, a person robbed the Bank Club casino’s safe of $500 in silver change (about $9,000 today) between 4 and 6 p.m. on a Wednesday in early December. This particular Bank Club — a common name for Nevada gambling houses — was located in the town of Elko. The…
1925 Newton “Newt” Crumley, Sr., Goldfield, Nevada resident, met with William Doyle in September to discuss purchasing from him the Commercial Hotel in Elko, but they couldn’t agree on a price. Doyle wanted $5,000 more than what Crumley wanted to pay. No deal was done. A month later, they reconnoitered and, still haggling, flipped a…
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 —…
1966 Suddenly, in the fall, the Nevada Gaming Commission (NGC) directed 41-plus casinos to cease operation of specific electronic blackjack machines because they were “experiencing difficulties when played so as to render the devices more liable to win or lose” (Nevada State Journal, Oct. 21, 1966). These 101 devices, available in gambling rooms in Las…