1954 “If the Streeter suggestion should catch fire and the state took over gambling, it would be the damnedest experiment tried in the United States, and Nevada would have more hoodlums per square block than it has jackrabbits per square mile,” read a non-bylined Nevada State Journal op-ed piece, referring to the idea of Jack…
1947-1952 Despite New York mobsters trying to scare her off, an ambitious woman — Elaine Townsend (née Margaret Helgeson) — held her own as a gambling operator in the late 1940s. Bright, young and gorgeous, she parlayed her chutzpah, commerce degree and drive into making gobs of money in Cuba. Big Screen Worthy Her exploits…
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 likely…
1950 In late 1948, Hollywood movie producer, Frank N. Seltzer — known for the movies, Jungle Patrol and Let’s Live Again, which debuted that same year — began research for his next project, 711 Ocean Drive, starring Edmond O’Brien and Joanne Dru. He intended for it to expose the “bookie racket,” or “wire service as…
1961-1990s “As a boy in Chicago, [he] learned to cook standing on a milk crate in his mom’s kitchen, where Mrs. Capone — Scarface Al’s mom — would join them,” reported the Las Vegas Review-Journal (May 8, 2009). That youngster was Joseph D. Pignatello. Once an adult, the nascent chef prepared meals for his boss,…
1970-1975 In a massive, coordinated effort, federal agents raided illegal bookmaking operations throughout the U.S. with ties to organized crime. On December 12, 1970, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents struck in 11 states and 26 cities, including Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York, Detroit, Miami Beach, six in Ohio…
1957-1959 During Nevada’s 1957 legislature, State Senator Kenneth Johnson (R-Ormsby), voiced his concerns about some of the state’s gambling licensees* simultaneously co-owning Cuban casinos. He feared that: • Nevada licensees might form alliances with U.S. Mobsters in Havana, who primarily ran gambling there • Nevada licensees might use those relationships to hide Mob interests in…
1969-present When executives of Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada hosted 12 people from Kansas City in 1969 as part of a gambling junket, it unexpectedly backfired. When their guests, after four days at the resort, boarded the plane to return home, Clark County sheriff’s deputies arrested all of them on charges of vagrancy because…
1960 A cheap, spiral notebook held great power in Nevada’s gambling world for decades. It contained known U.S. mobsters whose underworld statuses and histories were such that the state gambling authorities didn’t want them anywhere near The Silver State’s casinos. This was a problem as these undesirables frequented major gambling operations in the state. Nevada…
1935 In 1934, John Petricciani regained use of his Reno, Nevada, property he’d owned for 10 years and first licensed his saloon, the Palace Bar, for roulette and 21 games, one apiece. Prior, he’d leased space in the building to various business owners, including local Mobsters, William “Bill” Graham and James “Jim” McKay, who’d operated…