Casino, Gambling Saloon, Card Club, Slot Route Owners / Operators / Licensees / Gamblers

AG Heads Protection Racket for Disallowed Gambling

1947-1950 Starting in 1947, Wiley “Buck” H. Cadell used his governmental position to build a statewide system of protection for illegal gambling operations in California, the first such concerted effort of this kind in the…

Bill Harrah Steals Harolds Club's Ad Formula

1937-1970s For Harrah’s, which debuted in Reno in 1937 as a bingo parlor, extensive advertising was key to its growth into one of Nevada’s largest gambling empires by the 1970s.* However, owner/operator William “Bill” Fisk…

War Disables Nevada Tango Club Owners

1941-1952 The 1941 breakout of war between the U.S. and Japan started a series of deleterious events for Nevada’s first tango parlor Reno Club, Inc. and its proprietors. These included a tangle with a newcomer…

Quick Fact -- Lady Godiva Trots to New Residence

Lady Godiva has a new address. Looking gorgeous in a long blue dress, she and her horse distinctively embellish the front yard of a Carson City home. Godiva appears as though she’s arriving for a…

2 Nevadans Build International Gambling Empire

1958-1962 With their involvement in Nevada casinos behind them, Silver State residents, Clifford “Cliff” A. Jones and Jacob “Jake” Kozloff, together accrued a string of gambling enterprises in and around South America. Who They Were…

New Game of Chance Hits Popularity Jackpot in 1930s Nevada

1936-1950s The Palace Club introduced a new casino game to Nevada’s “Biggest Little City” on May 1, 1936. Renoites quickly discovered it, and its popularity soared, leading to a solid run over about a decade.…

West Coast IRS Men Bribe Gamblers

  1940-1953 In 1946, Pat Mooney, chief field deputy of the Nevada Internal Revenue (IR) Bureau office, made gambler-Mobster Elmer “Bones” F. Remmer* an offer he couldn’t refuse. If the gambling club owner purchased $52,400…

Casino Dealer, Accomplice Execute Elaborate Crime in Las Vegas, Part II

In case you missed it, Part I is available here. 1978-1984 Paul Michael Kodelja, who was about to stand trial on January 4, 1978 for his role in the kidnapping of Reno and Polly Fruzza…

3 Brothers Build Legacy in 20th Century U.S. Gambling

1907-1958 Wertheimer was their name. Three of these four Michigan-born brothers became full-fledged, successful gambling operators in the first half of the 1900s, their reach spanning five states: Michigan, Ohio, Florida, California and Nevada. “As…

Mobsters Horn in on Northern Nevada Gambling Clubs

Ad in the Nevada State Journal, June 26, 1935 1929-1941 In the early decades of legal gambling in Nevada, Reno’s McKay/Graham combine expropriated legitimate business owners’ casinos in Washoe County. The local Mob, headed by…

Few Convictions for Cheating at Gambling Interpreted

1931-1948 Gambling and cheating at gambling go together like, well, coins in a slot machine or cards in a shoe. Seemingly, they always will despite various efforts — violence, laws/rules, surveillance, firings, procedures, technology and…

Reno Gambling Club Owners Describe Industry’s Ruling Mobsters

1920s-1930s It’s undisputed that Mobsters ruled early gambling in Reno, Nevada’s 1920s and 1930s. Two club owners who offered games of chance in the city courageously wrote, in their memoirs roughly two decades later, about…