One Thunder Buck, Thunderbird, Las Vegas, NV

1965-1966

When Nevada’s casinos switched the form of currency accepted in their $1 slot machines to a token from the nearly extinct silver coin in 1965, it had an unexpected result. People around the world wanted to collect the new pseudo-money.

Since the change went into effect following U.S. Treasury and Silver State approval in July 1965, “countless thousands of the tokens have been taken out of circulation,” reported the Las Vegas Sun in May 1966. “One Las Vegas casino executive said the inventory of the first order was depleted by 20,000 tokens so fast that a reorder was placed immediately.”

A Look At The Numbers

By Nevada regulation, all gambling houses had to have their own dollar token design, and they opted to change it, in some way, annually. For the first two years at least, only The Franklin Mint in Pennsylvania, owned and operated by the Numismatics Corporation, designed and manufactured The Silver State’s dollar tokens. Master sculptor-engraver Gilroy Roberts, responsible for the appearance of the Kennedy half-dollar for one, created the look of most, if not all, of them.

In 1965, the first year, 28 Nevada casinos, located in Lake Tahoe, Reno, Carson City, Las Vegas, North Las Vegas and Boulder City, purchased customized dollar tokens. These were either in a gold or silver color, depending on their preference. 

For collectors, the mint produced “proof-like” sets of all 28, meaning the tokens were made out of metals other than silver. The silver-hued tokens consisted of what the mint called Franklinium II, a copper-nickel-niobium alloy with some added columbium and strengthening metals. The gold-toned tokens were made out of Franklin nickel-brass. Proof-like sets in 1965 cost about $125 ($1,000 today).

Rio Suite Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas, NV Dollar Token

Also, the gambling tokens were sold individually, by coin collectors, for about $2.50 apiece ($20 today).

The Franklin Mint manufactured “proof” sets, too, comprised of pure silver coins, which were individually fed to and produced on a 360-ton press. Proof sets went for roughly $425 in 1965 ($3,500 today).

By February 1966, about 1.5 million dollar tokens were in use in the state, said Edward A. Olsen, chairman of its Gaming Control Board. By May, the number of Nevada gambling clubs using them was up to 46 and further spread geographically to include Sparks, Virginia City, Fallon, Beatty and Henderson. By year-end, the total was 72.

Because the Franklin Mint didn’t sell directly to the public, anyone who wanted a proof-like set had to purchase one from a dealer, paying a fee to do so, or visit every casino that used dollar tokens and collect the pieces in person, one by one. Proof sets only were available through a broker.*

Gambling Clubs Benefit

With every dollar token that patrons took home, the casino made money.

The gaming clubs paid the mint between 15 and 50 cents per token, depending on the quantity ordered, then sold them to guests for $1 apiece. Thus, any unredeemed token garnered the casinos between $0.50 and $0.85 each, and the margin added up. In the case of the Las Vegas club with 20,000 missing tokens, it amounted to $10,000 to $17,000 ($83,000 to $140,000 today).

“Thousands of [the dollar tokens] are being taken home by souvenir-conscious tourists,” Olsen said (Reno Evening Gazette, Feb. 10, 1966).

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* Today, on eBay, a 1965 proof-like set of the original 28 Nevada casino dollar tokens, pre-owned, sells for about $400; a pre-owned set from 1966 of the 72 of them goes for around $575.

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1963-1964

Caifano/Marshall

Mobsters Marshall Caifano (aka Johnny Marshall) and Charles Delmonico were arrested in Las Vegas on a federal warrant in July 1963 for conspiracy to commit extortion and engaging in interstate transportation in the aid of racketeering.

The latter charge was because the two supposedly schemed in California to commit the crime and then tried to finish carrying it out in Nevada. The two pleaded innocent and were released on $20,000 bond apiece (about $165,000 today).

Caifano/Marshall (born Marcello Giuseppe Caifano), age 54, had been listed in Nevada’s Black Book of personae non gratae in the state’s casinos since 1960. He was a prime suspect in several murders in Chicago, Illinois, his stomping grounds before Las Vegas.

Delmonico

Delmonico, age 36, was actually Charles “Chuck” James Tourine. He was the son of Genovese capo Charlie “The Blade” Tourine, a former gambler in Las Vegas and Cuba.

The mobsters’ target was Raymond “Ray” J. Ryan, wealthy head of the Ryan Oil Co. in Evansville, Indiana, owner of the El Mirador Hotel in Palm Springs, California and a high-rolling gambler.

The Alleged Crime

The story, pieced together from various newspaper accounts, Caifano/Marshall and Delmonico picked up Ryan at the El Mirador on April 30 and drove off. Ryan, unfamiliar with the men, had vetted them through his friend John S. Drew, then the co-owner of the Chicago Outfit-owned Stardust in Vegas, but also had two of his hotel employees trail the mobsters and Ryan in another car.

Ryan

In the back seat with Ryan, Caifano/Marshall demanded he pay him $15,000 and $60,000 in short order and then $60,000 each subsequent year. The first amount was to settle a supposed debt to high roller Nicholas “Nick the Greek” A. Dandolos resulting from a poker game Dandolos and Ryan had played 15 years before, in 1949. The annual $60,000 was protection money, as the Outfit had averted Ryan getting kidnapped in the past, for free, it claimed, but not anymore.

Delmonico hit Ryan in the chest to emphasize the mobsters’ message. Yet Ryan said he wouldn’t give them any money, and they argued. Eventually, though, they let him go because he had a flight scheduled later that day to Las Vegas.

On May 1, in Ryan’s Desert Inn hotel room, Caifano/Marshall told Ryan they were going for a ride in the desert because Ryan hadn’t forked over any cash. The mobster forced Ryan into the hallway, where he spotted Delmonico and Dandolos. The oil tycoon made a run for it, shielded himself behind a full luggage rack, got to the lobby and had a security guard contact the authorities.

Facing The Heat

Caifano/Marshall and Delmonico’s trial began in Los Angeles in January 1964, with Thomas Sheridan, assistant U.S. attorney in charge of the criminal division for Southern California, prosecuting the case.

Dandolos, 81, testified that he and Ryan had known one another for 32 years and often had played cards together, for as long as five consecutive weeks at a time, with some games lasting five or more hours.

The supposed debt, Dandolos said, had stemmed from an August 1949, lowball poker game by the pool at the Flamingo or the Thunderbird in Las Vegas (reports differed on this point), during which Ryan allegedly had cheated him out of $550,000 ($5.8 million today). He claimed Ryan had used a shortwave radio to learn what cards Dandolos had either from someone who could see them somehow via a set of mirrors or from someone on the roof with a telescope (again, reports varied). (The money Dandolos had played with in that game supposedly had been put up by Chicago high rollers, thus, Ryan’s allegedly swindling the bundle from Dandolos enraged the Outfit.)

Dandolos said Ryan had paid back only $26,000 ($275,000). The big-time gambler said he had four men looking for Ryan to collect on the alleged gambling debt of $524,000 ($4.3 million), which was the $550,000 minus the $26,000.

Was Dandolos willingly in cahoots with the mobsters for some reason, perhaps because he needed money? Or were the mobsters using Dandolos to scam Ryan out of thousands of dollars?

Strange Twist

On the tenth day of the trial, Dandolos files a lawsuit against Ryan for $1,572,000 ($12.8 million) in damages and in which he charged Ryan had welched on the $524,000 he owed him from that 1949 rigged lowball poker game. Why hadn’t Dandolos filed the suit sometime during the past 15 years? Had the mobsters forced him to do so during their trial?

Back To Testimonies

Ryan took the stand and recounted that he’d won $15,000, not $550,000, during that very same 1949 poker game at the Flamingo. He said that later, Dandolos had asked him for $15,000, which he’d given him in cash, and he subsequently had loaned Dandolos $1,000 twice.

One witness, Lonnie Joe Chadwick, who Ryan claimed knew of the extortion attempt, was called by both the prosecution and defense. In a secret meeting in the judge’s chambers, Chadwick pleaded the Fifth Amendment.

The defense’s position was that Ryan had cheated Dandolos out of $555,000 during that 1949 poker game, as Dandolos has testified, and that neither Caifano/Marshall nor Delmonico had extorted or threatened Ryan to squeeze money out of him. Rather, they were simply trying to collect on a bad debt. In fact, the defendants, on the stand, denied trying to shake down Ryan and said they just were trying to get him to pay back Dandolos.

The defense also asserted that Ryan had contrived the extortion events to avoid making good on what he owed.

Jury And Judge

In February, the jury of nine men and three women found Caifano and Delmonico guilty.

(At the time, Caifano/Marshall was awaiting trial in Chicago on charges of conspiring to defraud an insurance firm of $48,000 [$395,000]. Delmonico had federal charges pending against him for a $22,000 [$181,000] bank robbery in Evansville committed on October 8, 1962.)

At March’s end, U.S. District Judge Jesse Curtis sentenced Caifano/Marshall to 10 years and Delmonico to two concurrent five-year stints. The men were taken into custody immediately.

The Fatal Postscript

Thirteen years after the trial, Ryan was murdered. On Tuesday, October 18, 1977, he left his neighborhood exercise club in Evansville after a workout and in the parking lot, got into his Lincoln Continental Mark IV, which then exploded into pieces.

The case went and remains cold, but the theory was advanced the Chicago Outfit had ordered the hit on Ryan in retaliation for him cheating Dandolos in that 1949 card game and for him snitching on Caifano/Marshall and Delmonico in 1963.

Featured photo from freeimages.com: Cards and Chips 3 by Chris Wrightson

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