1967 After a demonstration of the game, Nevada gambling regulators, for the first time, allowed pai gow — a Chinese version of dominos — to be offered in its casinos. The clubs with pai gow, however, were required to have a bankroll of $10,000 per game on hand should a patron win big. The New…
1958-1959 (Part I ran last week. If you missed it, it’s available here.) The Nevada Tax Commission withdrew the gambling license of the New Star operators — Brent Mackie and Kenneth Henton — in July 1958 after investigators allegedly witnessed 21 dealers cheating customers in eight different ways at the Winnemucca, Nevada casino. Later that month,…
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…
1958 Casino workers at the New Star allegedly were caught in flagrante delicto. In April, a gambling detective — Michael MacDougall from New York — conducted a statewide, in-person survey of various gambling entities upon the request of Robbins Cahill, head of the tax commission, Nevada’s gambling regulatory agency at the time. MacDougall spotted dealers…
1947-1970 For some businesses, the Red Line was beneficial; for others, detrimental. The Red Line designated a rectangular region of downtown Reno, Nevada in which casinos with unlimited gambling could exist. Clubs offering gambling outside the designated area were limited to 20 slot machines and three blackjack tables. The city council officially created this district…
1948 Arthur T. Morgan belligerently stormed into the Big Hat casino on Highway 91 (outside Las Vegas, Nevada) at about 1:30 a.m. on a Friday night in spring. He immediately began heckling, threatening to shoot and goading the proprietor, Sam Baker, into a gunfight. “When we go, we’re going to go all the way,…
1954 Due to the 1953 scandal in Wells, Nevada, the Nevada Tax Commission members in June 1954 prohibited open gambling in the town of Jackpot in The Silver State, just south of its border with Idaho, along U.S. Route 93. They worried that gambling 1) couldn’t be policed easily in that remote area and 2)…
1925 As of 1915, Nevada gambling law only allowed slot machines that discharged tokens, or bingles, exchangeable for on-site merchandise; those that paid out in money or bingles redeemable for currency were forbidden. “The fact remains, however, that the illegal money machines are running unmolested all over the state and particularly in Reno, under the…
1948-1950 In between dispatch orders, a Las Vegas, Nevada taxi driver fleetingly picked up the announcement of horse racing information on his cab radio one day in mid-October, 1948. He informed Clark County Sheriff Glen Jones, who contacted the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in Los Angeles. The agency immediately sent to Sin City two radio…
1967 When the owners of the Ponderosa — Reno, Nevada’s newest major hotel (at 515 S. Virginia Street, now the Wild Orchid) — were about to debut gambling, with a celebratory first throwing of the dice, they ran into a snag. It seems the casino bankroll was locked in the hotel safe … along with the safe key. Two…