1905-1941 Imagine in the early 1900s, a block about the length of a football field, in the Mojave Desert in Nevada where gambling, drinking and prostitution prevailed free from law enforcement’s intrusion, and where fights erupted often and killings were common. And because the days were so hot, it came alive at night when locals…
1955 When Nevada legislators legalized gambling in 1931, they didn’t consider one significant caveat. The omission came to light in January 1955 when an industrious Las Vegas casino patron was arrested for using Mexican 10 centavo coins in 25 cent slot machines — an act called slot slugging. Apparently, the coins fit perfectly. The judge…
1955 When presumed-to-be-wealthy mobster, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, was slain at age 41, the estate he left was worth $35,609 (about $314,550 today). Before his murder, Siegel co-financed and oversaw completion of the Flamingo hotel-casino in Las Vegas, Nevada but ran up its development costs by several million and began bouncing checks. In his earlier days,…
1931 Even after wide-open gambling became legal in Nevada, many of the exclusive clubs continued to vet the people who wanted entry. Someone inside the establishment would look through the peephole in the door and if he spotted a familiar face in the group, he’d allow them in. Photo from freeimages.com: The Man Who Spies…
1967 Nevada legislators proposed a bill that would disallow any future installation of slot machines in grocery and drug stores. It died, though, in the Senate Taxation Committee.
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…
1888 When select games of chance were legal in Nevada, so many youths under age 21 regularly were frequenting the gambling clubs (which was illegal) that the police threatened to make an example of some of them. Photo from freeimages.com, by Craig Matchett
Harolds Club, a casino that debuted in Reno, Nevada in 1935, displayed signs on its property that read: “No one can win all the time. Harolds Club advises you to risk only what you can afford to lose.”
1956 As revelers welcomed the new year at the Sands in Las Vegas, Nevada, management gave every guest (an estimated 18,000 of them) a brand new silver dollar. Additionally, they gifted each of the 700 women in the showroom a satin bag filled with 25 silver dollars. That’s a total giveaway of $35,500 (a $311,000 value…
1931-1965 Nevada’s early gambling industry was “wrapped in a segregated White Curtain” (Reno Gazette-Journal, Feb. 27, 2008). Between 1931, when Nevada legalized gambling, and 1965, African Americans were banned from gambling or even being present in the Silver State’s Caucasian-owned casinos, for fear their presence would scare away white patrons. Typically, any black person who…