1919 Outside many of Reno’s gambling saloons were benches, on which club-goers, typically men, whether or not they’d been gambling, were welcome to sleep the night. (At that time, some forms of gambling were legal in Nevada and the state’s Prohibition law had gone into effect on January 1 of that year.) “Upon leaving in…
1939 Las Vegas gambling houses and saloons were shut for three hours in observance of Good Friday, at the request of the local churches. It was the first time in the Nevada city’s history that such closures occurred for a day of religious significance. Photo from freeimages.com: by abcdz2000
Mid-1870s Virginia City, Nevada, at the peak of the mining boom when the population was about 18,000, boasted one gambling house for every 150 people. That’s 120 of these places, primarily saloons! Some of the more famous ones were the Delta, the Gentry and Crittenden, the Sazarac and the Sawdust Corner.
1825-1958 The hottest game in the Old West between 1825 and 1915, faro is pretty much extinct in the United States today. If you’ve never heard of it — and you aren’t alone there — it’s a fast-action, one-deck card game in which innumerable players compete against a bank rather than one another. (Learn the…