Late 1970s, 2000s Fay and Jessica were young, capuchin monkeys living on the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) campus, where two professors in the department of psychology intended to teach them how to gamble, in the late 1970s. (The female primates were named after actresses Fay Wray and Jessica Lange, who’d starred in the…
1950-1956 A novel, animated gambling device began to appear in Nevada casinos in 1950. It debuted in the lobby of Reno’s Mapes hotel-casino in the fall and “got a big play from visiting Shriners,” reported the Nevada State Journal (Nov. 12, 1950). They were one-armed bandits, or life-sized outlaws whose torso was a slot machine…
1938 During a preliminary hearing on the felony charge of using a cheating device while playing cards at a Las Vegas gambling house, Walter Eccles of Los Angeles explained that he’d used a holdout worn on his arm for “protection against a crooked gambling game” (Nevada State Journal, April 24, 1938).
1957, 1962, 1968, 1974 Over the years, entities around the world fashioned casinos for various educational and training purposes. Here are four that were based in the U.S.: 1) Instruction for Novice Players In 1957, the Royal Nevada in Las Vegas set up and housed a cash-less casino in its Beverly Hills, California…
1957 Inside the Golden Bank Casino on a Saturday afternoon, security personnel saw Merle Naughton, 40-year-old salesman, yanking and pounding on slot machines. When they told him to leave, he did. He went across the street, where he stood and yelled profanities at them. A while later, he went back inside the Reno, Nevada club…
1969 For a week in May, the leader of a group of U.S.-based gamblers rented the Villa Casino, which overlooked Hyde Park in West London, along with two craps tables, the latter for $2,500 (about $17,000 today) and 10 percent of the profits. They offered a gambling trip to England for $960 ($6,500 today) for…
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…
1952 “One of the members of the Journal news staff stopped in at a [Reno, Nevada] casino one night last week, put a nickel in a slot machine and hit the jackpot. The attendant came with $7.50 and gave him another nickel to take the machine off pay. He did it — you guessed…
1934-1938 While doing time at Alcatraz, Alphonse “Scarface” Capone, infamous Chicago organized crime boss heavily involved in gambling, played the banjo and mandola (a large mandolin) in the prison band, The Rock Islanders, a rotating group of musicians who performed for the other inmates every Sunday. He also composed music. A few wax versions of…
1951 Canada-born Jack Sullivan, né John D. Scarlett, had co-owned and run the Bank Club for two decades and prior to that, the Willows (it burned down in 1932) — both Reno, Nevada casino hotspots. He’d retired a mere six months before his death at age 72. He passed away on April 24, 1951 in…