1958-1959

Two major impactful events occurred, one in 1958, the second 1.5 years later, involving the Senator Club, which offered the game 21 and slot machines. Near the Nevada capitol in Carson City, this casino-restaurant-bar was popular among state legislators and politicians.

At the time, Stella C. Vincent and William “Bill” E. Duffin had co-owned the business, 63 percent and 37 percent, respectively, for about two years. Duffin, though, ran the place.

Impetus For First Upset

Cheating at the Senator Club came to light in January 1958 when Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB) investigator William Walts witnessed Nicholas “Nick” V. Goodman dealing seconds, using the second versus top card in the deck, during 21 games. The NGCB called Goodman in for a chat. Agents told him they’d received unfavorable reports about his conduct and warned him he better deal cleanly.

Four months later, three Reno insurance salesmen filed a complaint with the tax commission, alleging a dealer named Nick had swindled them at the Senator. They’d seen Nick burn a card in the middle of a hand (take it from the top and put it face up on the bottom of the deck). This is usually only done after each shuffle. Nick also allegedly turned the deck or dealt from the bottom mid-game, so he could access cards used in earlier hands.

Also in April, Michael MacDougall, a gambling detective the Nevada Tax Commission hired to survey the industry in The Silver State, reported he witnessed cheating at the Senator Club (and at the New Star in Winnemucca).

Hammer Comes Down

To address the alleged cheating at the Senator, the NGCB held a hearing, per protocol, in June, for Vincent and Duffin to explain why they should be allowed to keep their gambling licenses.  

At the proceeding, NGCB agents questioned all of the witnesses, the co-owners and Goodman. Duffin and Vincent asserted they didn’t know cheating was taking place. Goodman denied he’d knowingly cheated, ever.

In late July, the Nevada Tax Commission, on the NGCB’s recommendation, revoked both gambling licenses associated with the Senator Club. All gambling activity ceased there. This was the first big blow to the gambling business during the Duffin-Vincent time.

Picking Up The Pieces

The co-owners made the best of it. They kept open the restaurant and bar and installed a dance floor in the casino space. Later, in early 1959, they leased the gambling concession to an outside operator.

Goodman, however, didn’t fare so well. He was fired from the Senator Club, for starters.

“The case washed up Goodman as a Nevada dealer, although he has steadfastly maintained he was not cheating,” wrote the Nevada State Journal (Dec. 27, 1959).

Shocking, Irreversible Loss

At the end of shift early Christmas morning in 1959, Duffin invited the Senator Club employees leaving work and some patrons still there to join him for breakfast at the nearby Silver Spur café-casino. Reportedly, Duffin often showed such kindnesses, including driving home employees so they wouldn’t have to walk or take a taxi in the dark wee hours.

Following the meal, the group dispersed. Duffin, on his way through the parking lot, stopped to wish several Silver Spur employees Merry Christmas.

Once at his car, after he opened the driver’s side door, a handful of bullets hit him in the back and drove him to the ground.

Duffin died then and there.  

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It Really Happened! will publish Part II next Wednesday, April 20, 2022.

Sources

The Harmony Kid made his living as a traveling gambling cheat in the U.S. and was known from coast to coast. While primarily a card and dice sharp, Lawrence Varner (1865-1933) also perpetrated swindles related to roulette and horse races. He he obtained his moniker because he was born and lived for decades in New Harmony, Indiana.

He was “one of the most notorious gamblers and sporting men in the country,” wrote The Democrat in 1892. That newspaper shared what a colleague of Varner said about him: “That fellow has won more money in the last two years than any three men in the country in his life, but it goes like the wind. He is never broke, though, and has lots of friends in every city in the Union.”

Cons and other crimes were part and parcel of Varner’s career despite his having a family of his own. Here we create a snapshot of his “professional” life through some highlights, presented chronologically.

1886: His Unfailing Bones

This year, craps was introduced in Cincinnati, Ohio. Using his trusty method of cheating, the Harmony Kid stunned the naivete right out of two of the game’s operators there, taking one for $900 ($25,000 today) and the other for $1,100 ($30,000).

During play, Varner “would sling his money around promiscuously and give the house dice a wicked twist with the result that one of them would jump off the table, and on to the floor,” described The Daily Times-Star (June 10, 1924). While retrieving the errant die, he switched out both for his own set of stolen tops and buttons, misspotted dice with which one can’t roll certain losing combos. Varner’s bones lacked ones and sixes, minimizing his chances of landing on the dreaded seven. 

“To add insult to injury, the ‘Harmony Kid’ wrote a scurrilous letter to each of the Cincinnatians in which he told [them] that what [they] didn’t know about that little old game would fill a cistern,” reported The Daily Times-Star (June 10, 1924).

For the rest of his life, the Harmony Kid steered clear of Cincinnati.

1889: Escalated Card Game Dispute

During an argument with an Indiana saloonkeeper, Dallas Tyler, in Washington, Indiana, about a card game, Varner shot him. The bullet hit Tayler on the inside of one of his legs. Varner escaped, and Tyler survived.

1890: Wedding Bells Ring

The Harmony Kid married Laura Warden in Kentucky and went on to have at least two children.

1893: Arrested for Murder

Varner was charged with murdering a George Franklin, who’d been found dead on the train tracks in New Harmony with a fractured skull and two head gashes. He’s last been seen at the fair. It’s unclear why the Harmony Kid was fingered for the crime. During his trial, the jury couldn’t agree, with 10 for acquittal, two for conviction. Eventually, the case was dismissed.

1898: Off To The Great White North

During The Klondike Gold Rush, Varner and some buddies traveled to this region in Canada’s Yukon Territory to make a fortune. Their hopes were dashed, though, when they discovered there really wasn’t any money there for the taking. After six months with nothing to show for their time spent there, the group returned to the Lower 48.

1900: A Needle In A Wheel

With fellow gambling cheat and Indianan Jim Pents, the Harmony Kid swindled Columbus, Ohio gambling room owner John Alexander, known as the Black Prince, out of $400 ($11,000 today) at the roulette wheel. Varner and Pents had broken into Alexander’s place of business the day before and inserted a needle into the wheel. Pressing on the needle stopped the wheel.

On the day of the swindle, the two showed up dressed as farmers. They played some faro and lost. The roulette wheel operator enticed them to try their luck with him, so the duo made a few bets and lost. Then a third man, a secret associate of Varner and Pents, entered the business. He acted as though he was just watching the action, but intentionally stood blocking the operator’s view of the Harmony Kid.

Pents made the bets, and when he signaled, Varner pressed the needle. Every time they did this, they won, an average of $53 a turn. Alexander paid them in certificates of deposit but later, when he discovered they’d rigged his wheel, he stopped payment on them.  

“Not long ago [Varner and Pents] cleaned up $1,400 in Lexington by the same game,” reported the Greencastle Star-Press (July 28, 1900). “They have skinned a [gambling] bank in almost every big city in America. Both men have been principals in similar skinning affairs for years back.”

1903: Clever Horse Race Scam

The Harmony Kid employed a system for betting on the horse races at the pool rooms in New York, New York that generated between $2,000 and $3,000 (about $55,000 to $82,000 today) a day. After months of doing this six days a week at such enterprises in The Big Apple, the proprietors caught on, and they all banned him from their business.

Varner’s scheme was this: In the morning  at every pool room, he left a note with his bet, which was on a horse to come in as good as third. He purposefully always bet on a favorite because there wasn’t any third place money for the horses in this class in any race. He also indicated he wanted the form sheet in a certain newspaper to dictate his payout should he win. Those amounts tended to be prohibitive.

So every time Varner’s horse lost, the bookies had to give Varner back the money he bet, and any time his horse won, they had to pay him a large amount.

“In other words, the poolroom men were being constantly drained out of their money without a chance of winning a cent,” reported The Ottawa Journal (Nov. 7, 1903).

1904: More Creative Cheating

With an accomplice, also from Indiana, the Harmony Kid pulled a different, less complicated roulette cheat. In a gambling room in Pekin, Illinois, the two slowly made their way over to the roulette wheel. After playing and losing for a bit, Varner asked the wheel operator for some cigars. He went to retrieve some, and while away, the Harmony Kid somehow plugged the wheel. After that, the two cheats won on nearly every turn. They only played for a half-hour, but in that time racked up $465 ($13,000 today).

Also this year, Varner fleeced various bookmakers in Hot Springs, Arkansas out of about $9,000 ($247,000 today) in all. At several betting parlors, he and eight other swindlers wagered on various horse races. When the results came over the wires, everyone in his group won and collected their winnings. The announced winners, however, weren’t the actual winners.; the broadcast was fake, previously arranged by Varner.

For this fraud, Varner ultimately was arrested in St. Louis, extradited back to Arkansas and held over for a grand jury investigation. The charge was obtaining money under false pretenses. What happened in the case is unknown as the story disappeared from the headlines.

1910: Four-Minute Fraud

The Harmony Kid blew into Reno, Nevada on a train. It was the last chance to gamble there, as a new law mandated a permanent statewide shutdown by midnight that day. After ambling through the three still open casinos, he sat down to play craps in the Casino. By this time, he’d modified his dice switching modus operandi, pulling them from a sleeve as he pushed it up. Using his infamous misspotted dice, he took the house for $500 ($14,000 today) in only four minutes.

“He made every kind of a complicated bet, shooting continuously, and keeping the dealer so busy paying him that he could not notice the alarming number of sixes and eights,” reported the Reno Evening Gazette (Oct. 1, 1910). “Time up, the Kid left $30 or $40 in bets on the table, substituted the square dice and crapped out immediately.”

He stealthily merged with the crowd and moved to and out the door. Next, he went to the Palace, but quickly left when the craps dealer saw him, as the two knew one another. To make his escape, Varner drove to the neighboring town of Sparks and caught the train out there.

1920: Taking It Overseas

By year-end 1910, all legal gambling in the U.S. had gone away and with it, opportunities for the Harmony Kid to earn money in the way at which he excelled. It appears as though he spent some years serving the country during World War I.

Afterward, in 1920, he went to Europe for the purpose of “commercial business,” as a “salesman,” according to his passport application. Most likely, the only selling he did there was of the lie he was an honest gambler.

There was no mention of him in American newspapers until his passing, in 1933, at which time he was back in the States, Chicago specifically.

Do you know anything about the Harmony Kid you could share?

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Photos: all from freeimages.com

Sources

“Whenever he gets in a fix, he reaches into his bag of tricks.” That statement not only applied to Felix the Cat but also held true for many gambling cheaters during the 19th and 20th centuries in the U.S. One of their go-to aids was called check cop or sure cop (“cop” meaning “steal” here).

Composition And Use

One source described the product as a liquid chemical adhesive, and another said it was beeswax.

Whatever one’s version was made of, “check cop was an indispensable article in any high class poker game, for what was a fellow to do if he lost his match box mirror or broke his Sullivan knee spread, or went blind and could not read the backs of his marked cards? Ah, that has been well looked after, for any real gamble must be a sure thing. If all devices fail, use check cop,” reported the Syracuse Herald (July 24, 1921).

Cheating dealers or players rubbed or smeared some check cop on the palm of a hand, making a “perfect picking-up surface,” the newspaper described. Then, with the treated hand, they inconspicuously pilfered others’ coins, chips and/or checks. They even used check cop to palm then switch cards, coins or dice during a game.

Distraction Is Key

The Syracuse Herald described how check cop was used clandestinely. “If all else fails, all the craft gambler had to do was to point his right hand at the door and cry, ‘Here comes the cops’ or any of those old Sherlock Holmes attention attractors and slyly slip out his left hand over his adversary’s chips while he’s looking the other way, the check cop on his palm will do the rest.”

The article went on: “Of course only a bungling amateur would resort to the suggested method of distracting his adversary’s attention, the simplest way was just to palm the chips one at a time as the gentleman on your left turned to give an order to the waiter, stooped down to light a match or make any other little unconscious move which took his eyes for an instant off the stack of chips before him.”

Foolproof And Fabulous

About 10 big companies, from which gamblers bought cheating implements, sold their own version of check cop and, thus, relied on advertising to distinguish their own product from their competitors’.

One such novelties business touted its check cop as “the best of the kind on the market. It does not interfere with the action of the hand and a check will adhere to it while the hand is held perfectly flat, yet no particle will adhere to the check,” reported The Fort Wayne News and Sentinel (May 3, 1919).

Another firm, Mason & Co., asserted in its catalog, “Palming is one of the most difficult feats of the profession. With our check cop it is done easily and surely with out [sic] practice.”

Other companies claimed the following about their check cop:

• “We positively will not sell this article to more than one person in a town. Order at once to have things your way.”
• “It will pick up coin the same as it will checks, and anyone can use it successfully without practice.”
• “It can be worked on the wisest gambler without fear of detection.”
• “One very small piece will last an entire night while the dope and plasters offered by other firms will soon become dry and lose their power.”
• “As to price, it is almost nothing. One box will last a long time and it is always ready for use, and it is not affected by cold or heat.”
• “For removing top card and holding out cards, it is just the thing. For palming and switching dice, it has no equal.”

Save Your Money

The Encyclopedia of Gambling noted that an alternative was/is available to cheaters, which is cheaper, more convenient and uses a product many people already have in their home.

“Some cheaters see no need to purchase these preparations; they have their own do-it-yourself methods,” the author wrote. “They simply cook up a piece of adhesive tape and scrape the gummy substance onto their palm. It is just as effective a method.”

Beware Of Users

The existence of check cop and similar products led casinos to require that dealers “clear their hands” before touching their person or leaving their game table. They’re required to turn up their palms to the cameras to show they’re empty and clap their hands to dislodge anything that might be stuck to either one.

Science and Invention in Pictures, in its June 1924 issue, advised: “Be suspicious of the person who ‘monkeys’ with the chips. The man who takes ‘kitty’ or ‘cuts’ the game frequently uses a ‘check cop.'”

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Illustration of player using check cop during game: from Science and Invention in Pictures

Photo of palmed chip: from The Inter Ocean

Sources

1954

Two gambling-related issues — cheating by operators and prostitution — in Nevada’s town of Searchlight came to a head at the July meeting of the state tax commission, then responsible for overseeing gaming.

Regarding the roughly 300-resident community, commissioners 1) had heard rumors that its local ladies of the night mingled with customers in the casinos and 2) had been getting increasing complaints about the gambling clubs swindling their patrons.

Exercise Of Power

Until Searchlight addressed both problems to the satisfaction of the commissioners, they’d deny all gambling license applications, they said. And they did. In July, they refused to grant licenses to three of the town’s four casinos:

Oasis Club: one application by Belle Norheim then a second application by her sons Herman and Wilfred John Collier

Searchlight Casino: applicant Ernest Sandquist

El Rey Club: Gerald W. Judd and W. J. Martello applied for a reinstatement of their license as the commission had revoked it the previous year after discovering a rigged slot machine on the premises

Survival At Risk

The Crystal Club being the only licensed gambling house there at the time created an economic crisis for Searchlight, located about 60 miles south of Las Vegas. The community relied on its cut of gambling license fees to cover the $5,000 to $6,000 a year needed to operate. Its other income source, property taxes, contributed only about $800.

“We need licenses regardless of whom they are issued to,” Clyde C. Cree of the Searchlight town board told commissioners at their August meeting. “We want a town, gentlemen, I’m here to tell you that. We’d like to know what the tax commission wants cleaned up” (Reno Evening Gazette, Aug. 10, 1954).

Commissioners made it clear that Searchlight and its casinos needed to 1) keep gambling separate from prostitution and 2) stop the cheating of players. Cree agreed to make it happen.

“If it is a matter of the girls keeping the boys from getting licenses, then we’ll get rid of the girls,” he said.

The gambling agency gave Searchlight some time to get it done and, thus, deferred action on the town’s three pending license applications, at least until it next met.

Supposed Turnaround

At the subsequent monthly meeting, commission secretary Robbins E. Cahill reported what he’d found during his recent investigative trip to Searchlight.

The license applicants were willing to abide by the tax commission’s mandates, none of the clubs was engaged in prostitution and gambling there “was pretty well straightened out,” he said (Nevada State Journal, Sept. 10, 1954).

Therefore, the commissioners granted licenses for the Searchlight Casino and El Rey Club.

They, however, denied the Colliers brothers a license for the Oasis Club because they had criminal pasts, including prison time served in California for burglary. That ended gambling at the Oasis for good, leaving Searchlight with only three licensed casinos.

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Photo from Pond5.com: by egubisch

Sources

Riviera dice, with crystallized corners

From size to spot design, the basic elements of dice have evolved over time. Much of the changes made to U.S. dice over the last roughly 150 years have been effected with the goals of making it harder for players to cheat and making it easier for gambling house personnel to spot altered dice. Today, casino dice are more varied than ever.

Here’s a look at sharps’ tricks, illegal in the country’s casinos, and how gambling operators used (and still use) dice design to foil cheating attempts:

A bone die from the early 1880s

Rolling The Bones

Around the world, original dice were crafted out of bone (hence, the dice nickname “bones”), ivory and other materials, including bronze, agate, rock crystal, onyx, jet, alabaster, marble, amber and porcelain.

Eventually, opaque plastic dice, through which light can’t pass, became the norm in the States. This type was ideal for cheaters, who could get away with rigging them for an advantage during game play.

Modifications inside a die increased the weight on a certain side, which boosted the user’s chances of the die turning up a desired number.

Cheaters employed various methods to create these weighted, loaded or gaffed dice. They included:

Icing: To ice a die, one inserted a weight or iron filling inside it on the side opposite the desired face. The weighted, or heavy, side was more likely to fall against the table, thereby making the wanted side show.

Variable loading: This more complicated approach allowed the user to throw any side he desired rather than a predetermined one. The process involved hollowing out the die through one of the pips, placing a small weight inside, filling the cavity with a soft wax with a melting point just above room temperature, filling the pip with glue or epoxy and then coloring it to match the other pips.

While in play, the player had to hold the die in his closed first for a moment with the desired face up. This warmed the dice, allowing the wax to melt and the weight to shift to the opposite side. Then he had to hold the die in an open palm so it would cool and the wax would harden and, thus, hold the weight in place.

Tapping: This version of the variable loading method entailed creating, inside the die, a central reservoir and running tubes from it to each of six additional reservoirs created behind each of the faces. Then the central reservoir would be filled with mercury.

During play, a tap of the die against the table or other hard surface would send the mercury into the reservoir behind the face opposite the desired side. The mercury weighted the side it was on and altered the outcome of a roll.

To counteract these cheating methods, gambling operators wanted to be able to see into the die. A solution came in the second half of the 1800s in the form of dice made out of cellulose nitrate, or nitrocellulose, a synthetic and translucent plastic. An added benefit was these dice could be colored by dying them. This composition, though, was problematic. It was highly flammable and, over time, crystallized due to plastic fatigue and ultraviolet light exposure.

Then, nearly a century later, came the advent of dice made out of cellulose acetate, a less flammable and natural plastic manufactured from purified natural cellulose. These are the dice used in U.S. casinos still today.

No Rounded Corners

Casino dice are exact cubes with sharp corners that ensure entirely random rolls. In contrast, dice found in commercial board games, for instance, have rounded corners, which exacerbate any bias in them and skew roll outcomes.

Cheaters sometimes make a die off square by shaving one side to be shorter, which leads to one face predominantly showing on rolls. These alterations are so slight, they can’t be seen by the naked eye. Detecting a shaved die required measuring all sides of it with a micrometer.

Dice sizes and different pip designs

Size Matters

Casino dice size has gradually increased since the mid-1900s. They began at 5/8-inch squares then were increased to 11/16. Today, most are 3/4-inch squares, and each of a die’s dimensions must be true to within 1/2000th of an inch. As the die size grew, so did its pips, or spots or dots.

One reason for the increased size was to make die more difficult to palm and switch out, George Martin hypothesized in Collecting Casino Dice. He added that larger dice were more desirable on the larger craps tables that had become bigger over time, were easier to find on typically colorful, patterned casino carpeting and contained more surface area for printing a name or logo. Any to all of these factors could’ve prompted the size boost.

Shades iI Play

The most common color of casino dice is … yes, red, of various shades with many older dice being deep red or maroon. Whereas red still dominates, other dice colors — blue, yellow, green and purple — are often seen now.

As for the printing on dice, it began with one color, usually a light pastel to contrast with the red dice color. A rarity at the time was Club Primadonna’s (1955-1978, Reno, Nevada) dice, which boasted four colors of print in all, three on one side and a fourth on a second.

The printing on modern dice is usually done in two or three colors, often metallic ones like silver or gold.

Flamingo dice, 3/4 inch square, blue, with solid spot pips, a logo, lot number and internal identifying letter

Logos Prompt No-gos

When gambling establishments first started printing identifying info on their dice, it generally was their name, like “Boulder Club.” That evolved into printing the hotel name, like “Hotel Sahara” and then the casino name, such as “Fitzgerald’s Casino.” Some casinos opted for only a printed object, like a heart, horse, fish or gun, a geometric shape or symbol.

A later trend was dice bearing the possessive form of the casino owner’s surname, like “Harrah’s” and “Binion’s.” Sometimes it had their full name, such as “Milton Prell” and “Del Webb” and at other times, their initials. Eventually, printing identifiers included the casino’s geographic location, such as “Sparks Nevada,” the year, slogans like “Viva Las Vegas,” special event names and more.

These logos help casinos differentiate their dice from others’ and afford them a way to brand and market themselves.

Casinos change their printed logos several times a year and only use dice bearing the latest variation, again to prevent cheating. Cheaters generally won’t get away with swapping into a game old dice with a different logo.

The side containing the single pip is the most common for printing, with the two dot face the runner up, as they offer the most available space.

Not Gladys Knight’s Pips

Misspot dice, used to cheat and today called tops and bottoms, are made with certain numbers duplicated on or omitted from them. For example, one of these might have a one, three and five on it, twice each, but no two, four or six or vice versa.

As such, pips on today’s dice aren’t painted on. They’re drilled into the die then filled with a special paint. The paint’s density is the same as the die’s to ensure all sides weigh the same.

In terms of pips’ appearance, they most commonly are solid spots. Other pip designs of various names — bird’s eye, ring eye, double ring eye, bull’s eye, donut and others — include two concentric circles, one inside the other; a dot inside in a circle; a dot inside two concentric circles; an octagon inside a circle or any combination.

The arrangement of the numbers on U.S. dice is such that those on opposite faces always total seven. This means two mirror image arrangements are possible, in which 1, 2 and 3 are arranged in a clockwise or counterclockwise order about a corner.

This die’s key identifier is “F”

An Ounce Of Prevention

Casinos have added a couple of features. One is a letter or number printed underneath the paint of one pip. It can be seen only when looking into the cube in a certain way, usually through the four spot side toward the three spot side.

This identifier is yet another dice component cheaters have to contend with, and it’s a difficult one to replicate. To up the ante even more, casinos usually change this code with each new dice issue.

Each fresh dice lot also gets a new number, which is printed on every die in the batch, usually between the two rows on the six face.

When casinos take dice out of action permanently, they mark them, most commonly with a 1/4 inch in diameter circle stamped into the plastic on the four spot side. Sometimes they use an “X,” numbers or letters instead, even “void.” This allows anyone to easily spot the unacceptable use of retired dice in a game.

An Ongoing Battle

While the design of today’s casino dice goes a long way in counteracting cheating, it doesn’t eradicate it. For instance, some skilled players like Dominic “Dice Dominator” LoRiggio, can control how they throw dice so they land on certain numbers. Some cheaters use magnets to control their roll, one inside the dice and another under the table.

What ingenious method will someone concoct next?

Sources

The Friars Club in Beverly Hills had been a favorite haunt of Hollywood celebrities and the area’s wealthy since 1946, but something underhanded began happening there in the 1960s, unbeknownst to most of its 670 members.

Friendly Wagering

Card playing for money was a regular activity at the Southern California hangout. Games included poker, bridge, panguingue and klabberjass.* Gin rummy was the most popular and usually played for $0.02 or $0.03 cents a point, resulting in wins/losses of about $300 to $400 ($2,500 to $3,200 today).

The third floor of the $750,000 ($10 million today) club, at 9900 Santa Monica Blvd. was dedicated primarily to that activity. Stark with bright lights and hard surfaces, the expanse included a large card room for gin rummy and two smaller private spaces for poker.

“Inside it looks not unlike a Brinks counting house,” described the Los Angeles Times (Sept. 9, 1967).

To access the gambling amenities, visitors entered a plain, mirrored door, at which a guard stood to ensure only members and their guests went through.

In contrast, the second floor showcased high ceilings, muted lighting, warm-hued carpeting, oak paneling and inviting colors: burnt gold, maroon and mauve.  A small bar and a large dining room with a long elaborate buffet comprised the main areas. (The first floor contained a parking area.)

To be a Friars Club member, people had to donate a large sum of money, around $1,500 (about $13,000 today), to charity and subsequently pay $40 (about $350 today) a month in dues.

Gin rummy hand

Chicanery Comes To Light

In July 1967, five federal agents inspected the A listers’ hotspot for four hours. This led to a roughly six-month federal grand jury investigation, for which 75 people were subpoenaed to testify. Some flat out refused, some pleaded the Fifth.

The inquiry uncovered a surreptitious card cheating scheme. Players’ cards were spied on through holes cut in the ceiling, directly over the gambling tables, and covered with fake air vents. Based on everyone’s cards, the observer in the attic, relayed to his partner in the game what moves to make.

This was done through an electronic device, worn by the person at the table, which emitted silent taps. The sender and receiver used their own system of coded signals. For instance, when the player wanted to know whether or not to put down his cards, he placed his empty palm flat on the table. A single tap by his accomplice meant don’t knock, and no tap was a green light.

The perpetrators of the cheat had bilked Friars members this way for five years, between 1962 and 1967, the government alleged.

“Millionaires and celebrities, proud of their ability at gin rummy, [individually] lost up to $100,000 [$800,000 today] in games against opponents who knew what cards they were holding. Few even guessed they were being cheated,” reported the Los Angeles Times (Sept. 9, 1967).

Among the victims were Tony Martin, singer; Harry Karl, shoe magnate and Debbie Reynolds’ husband; Zeppo Marx, comedian and actor; Phil Silvers, comedic actor; and Theodore “Ted” Briskin, former Chicago camera manufacturer and, previously, Betty Hutton’s husband. The government claimed that in less than one year, Friars Club members and guests’ losses due to cheating totaled $400,000 ($3.3 million today).

Quartet To Be Tried

Ultimately, the federal government charged five men with various infractions related to conspiring to swindle people, including interstate transportation to aid racketeering, interstate transportation of funds obtained by fraud and under-reporting income, and totaling 49 counts among them. The alleged criminals were:

• Maurice “Maury” H. Friedman, 62, developer of the Frontier hotel-casino in Las Vegas
• Warner T. Richardson, 62, Frontier casino manager
• Johnny Rosselli, 62, Los Angeles-based Chicago Mobster
• Manuel “Ricky” Jacobs, 48, Beverly Hills professional gambler, promoter of legalized panguingue and owner of a Santa Monica card club
• Benjamin J. Teitelbaum, 53, wealthy art collector and co-owner of a studio equipment manufacturing company

All but Richardson were Friars Club members.

Genesis Of The Cheating

Friedman concocted the scheme with Richardson and hired William Douglas (unindicted ), an electronics expert, to modify the ceiling and install the tapper. At some point, Friedman hired George Emerson Seach (the key witness in the trial) to install and maintain better equipment because the initial system was problematic. When Seach went to prison for an unrelated offense, Friedman replaced him with Miami-based electronics engineer, Edwin Gebhard (refused to testify before the grand jury).

Friedman invited Al Mathes, famed restaurateur (granted immunity for his testimony), and Rosselli, to join the swindle. Mathes did the same with Teitelbaum.

“As more conspirators were brought into the scheme, the prosecutor said, there was ‘dissatisfaction over the division of the proceeds,'” reported the Los Angeles Times in its trial coverage (July 26, 1968).

Jacobs also cheated card players at the Friars Club but using a different method. During play, he and his accomplice conveyed to each other in conversation, using a version of alphabet code, what cards they needed.

After the five co-conspirators were indicted, Friedman gave Seach $25,000 ($186,000 today) and offered another $25,000 so he’d lie about Friedman’s involvement in the Friars Club scandal. Richardson offered Seach $5,000 to say Richardson hadn’t had anything to do with the scam. Teitelbaum threatened Seach, telling him, “He who digs a hole for others falls in himself.” These actions came out in the trial.

“The defendants have approached witnesses in an attempt to have them withhold evidence,” one of the prosecuting assistant U.S. attorneys said in his opening statement (Los Angeles Times, June 14, 1968).

The Verdict Is In

During the trial, which commenced June 12, 1968, Friedman admitted that he’d rigged games and cheated at the Friars Club but claimed he hadn’t done it past 1962, the time when the five-year statute of limitations no longer applied. He said his motive hadn’t been money. Rather, it had been to get back at Briskin, an excellent gin rummy player who regularly beat Friedman at it. As for having tried to pay off Seach, Friedman claimed Seach had shaken him down for the money.

Finally, after 68 witnesses and 200-plus exhibits, the nearly six month-long trial neared its end in January 1969. The jury of seven women and five men deliberated for 22 hours. They found all five defendants guilty. Subsequently, though, Richardson was acquitted.

Judge William P. Gray meted out these sentences, listed from most to least severe:

Friedman: 6 year prison term and $100,000 fine (months later, he’d get three more years for bribery in the Friars Club case)
Rosselli: 5 year prison term and $55,000 fine
Jacobs: 4 year prison term and $5,000 fine
Teitelbaum: 4 year prison term and $75,000 fine

Before the court, Gray told Friedman his “cynical cheating of people was cold and calculated.” He added, “Even wealthy people are entitled to the protection of the laws” (Los Angeles Times, Feb. 4, 1969).

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* Klabberjass, pronounced “klobber-yoss” and thus often simply called klob, is a Hungarian, combination poker and gin rummy card game.

Photo from pond5.com: Gin Rummy Hand

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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 more — to thwart chicanery.

“The casino gambling business is especially susceptible to fraudulent schemes,” wrote Jerome Skolnick in House of Cards.

An Incongruous Trend

During the 17 years between 1931 and 1948, only four convictions on cheating charges were reported in the newspapers in Northern Nevada, and two of them were connected in a single case involving one club. This is despite cheating, by both players and operators/dealers, reportedly being rampant.

What It Means

One of the takeaways from this datum is that no amount or type of deterrents will stop people entirely from trying to cheat. “Operating a cheating and thieving gambling game,”* a gross misdemeanor, continued despite a substantial maximum punishment for it: a year in county jail plus a $1,000 fine (equivalent to about $17,000 today).

Also, the low conviction number suggests that prosecuting gambling cheating cases rarely were successful. Oftentimes, initial charges got reduced or dropped. Reduced charges often bore “little resemblance to the cheating one” and may have culminated in “a plea of guilty to disturbing the peace,” a state gambling official later would tell the Nevada State Journal (Aug. 22, 1968).

Further, the statistic highlights the common trend of gaming house operators managing  swindlers themselves, in their own ways, with severe beatings, breaking of bones, even shootings. Of the four successfully tried cases in Washoe County, one incident was reported by a club owner and involved cheating the house. Another was reported by a customer, and the remaining set was discovered by Reno police deputies; those involved cheating the customers.

One reason for meting out “justice” in-house perhaps was the gaming club owners/operators not wanting to risk jeopardizing their gambling license. If a charge of cheating at their business was substantiated, they could have gotten their license revoked for a year and, consequently, been unable to legally offer any games of chance. Once the 12 months were over, they’d have to apply for a new license, with no guarantee of being granted one.

Cases In Point

Here are the four cheating cases that, atypically, were addressed in and resolved through the legal system. 

1) 1939: George “Shorty” M. King, 49, and 2) George “Shorty” L. Coppersmith, 53, gambling operators at The Dog House at 130 N. Center St. in Reno

The two Shorties had leased the gambling concessions at the Dog House for four years. Previously, they’d co-owned the Tavern and at different times from each other, had a percentage interest in the Capitol Bar.

On the night of July 4, 1939, after two Reno chief deputies witnessed both dealers manipulating the roulette wheel, they left, returned when the cabaret was less busy and raided it. They dissembled the wheel right then and there and called in an electrician. He “traced connections from electromagnets in the rim of the wheel to push buttons along the edge of the table and a series of dry batteries concealed in a large foot rail under the table,” reported the Reno Evening Gazette (July 6, 1939).

One switch was hidden in the wooden backstop of the wheel’s large money drawer. To activate it, one simply pushed on the drawer. The other button was concealed under a faux screw head on an edge railing of the wheel’s table. Using those electric controls, the operators could make the steel-cored ball fall within certain groups of numbers on the wheel.

Further, the technician noted the batteries hidden in the metal rail had to have been put there within the previous two months because they had May 1940 on them and batteries generally were dated one year ahead.

King and Coppersmith were arrested and each assigned bail of $1,000 (about $18,000 today). The Dog House owners, Al Hoffman and Phil Curti, along with John Petricciani, then Reno’s Palace Club owner/operator, paid King’s bail in cash; Felix Turillas, then owner of Reno’s Silver Slipper and Northern Club, paid Coppersmith’s by check.

Why did Petricciani and Turillas chip in for the Shorties’ bail?

Ultimately, King and Coppersmith both were fined $1,000, but King also received a six-month jail sentence because he was listed on the gambling license as the wheel’s owner.

“The incident ended both men’s gaming careers in Nevada,” wrote author Dwayne Kling.

Hoffman and Curti claimed they hadn’t known a crooked wheel was being used in their club.

“The two men operated the crap table and the roulette wheel,” Hoffman said, referring to King and Coppersmith, “and the management got one-third of the profits. We didn’t have anything to do with installing the machine, or its operation” (Nevada State Journal, July 6, 1939).

Despite Hoffman’s denial, District Attorney Ernest Brown recommended that all gambling licenses pertaining to The Dog House be revoked, which required a unanimous vote by the county commissioners, but they didn’t pursue it.

3) 1943: Alfred Leo Rooney, 38, a 21 dealer at an unnamed club in Reno

The establishment’s owner reported to police that at his business, he’d caught Rooney, an employee, cheating while dealing 21. One of the game’s players was Rooney’s co-conspirator, who was interpreting the cards’ marks and winning … frequently. “The police allege that there was to have been a division of winnings between Rooney and the confederate,” the Reno Evening Gazette reported (Jan. 28, 1943). When police arrested Rooney, he claimed he was innocent.

Justice of the Peace Harry Dunseath held him over for trial and set his bail at $2,000 (about $30,000 today).

After deliberating less than an hour, the jury found Rooney guilty. Judge A.J. Maestretti sentenced him to six months in jail, no fine.

4) 1948: Clifford Sikes, 51, a 21 dealer at Dutch Garden** at 565 W. Moana Lane in Reno

Sikes had worked for 16 years as a dealer, at the Stag Inn, Cedars and Moana Springs Bar, before his stint at Dutch Garden.

On March 5, 1948, Sikes was dealing 21 to a table of men who all were friends, among them a Milton Brown. After Brown lost $25 (about $265 today) in about 15 minutes, another friend, Louis Ostanoski, who’d been watching the game, told Brown the cards were marked. To prove it, Ostanoski correctly guessed Brown’s cards without seeing them.

Sikes overheard the conversation and said he’d switch decks. He put the deck he’d been using in a drawer and started to unwrap a new one. Brown stepped around the table, retrieved the previous deck, fanned it out on the table and pointed to the marks — indentations in the corners of the eight cards. Sikes grabbed what cards he could and tore them up, but Brown pocketed the rest. Dutch Garden owner Fred Stengler offered to refund Brown the $25, but he declined.

Subsequently, Brown filed a complaint with the police and turned over to them, as evidence, the marked cards he’d retrieved. Sikes was charged with operating a crooked card game using a marked deck.

Sikes paid and was freed on $1,000 bail (about $11,000 today). On the stand at his trial, he denied knowingly having dealt marked cards. Sikes implied that the customers had marked the cards not him. He said he’d torn up the cards only because Brown had been mixing the old deck with the new. Stengler testified on his behalf.

Despite the defense put forward, the jury found Sikes guilty, in fewer than 15 minutes. Maestretti sentenced him to a $1,000 fine and six months’ jail time.

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* When The Silver State legalized wide-open gambling in 1931, it addressed cheating in that new law. It read, in part: “The use of marked cards, loaded dice, plugged or tampered-with machines or devices are expressly made unlawful.”

** The former Dutch Garden building today houses On Command 2, a pet boarding center, and previously was the Yen Ching Chinese restaurant site.

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1967

The North Lake Tahoe gambling house had been running smoothly for eight months since Arthur “Art” L. Wood, developer of the Incline Village master-planned community, had assumed ownership of it earlier in the year. He’d acquired it along with the lakefront restaurant and bar components of The Sierra Tahoe in Nevada from then owner Calvin Kovens and afterward, renamed the gaming entity Incline Village Casino.

Caught In The Act

On a day in mid-October, employee Clayton P. Gatterdam was working there as a craps stickman, responsible for calling the dice rolls and moving the dice around the table. While a game was in progress, he pulled misspot dice — ones without certain numbers — a few times from a hidden pocket in his apron and swapped them for those in play to increase the player’s chance of winning. One of his dice, for instance, contained two ones, two fours and two fives.

Two members of the Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB), the investigative gambling regulatory arm that reports to the Nevada Gaming Commission (NGC), witnessed Gatterdam cheating! At the time, the NGCB happened to have been conducting a random, clandestine, undercover check of the Incline Village Casino.

Gatterdam had arranged in advance with an acquaintance to collude in the swindling and split the winnings. The co-conspirator was to bet at Gatterdam’s craps table, and Gatterdam was to insert the misspot dice to facilitate one or more wins.

“[We was] going to try to put the dice in and take the place off, shoot the bankroll. We was going to try to beat the house,” Gatterdam said in his statement to Wood’s attorney. He also admitted to having been a “crossroader,”* or cheater, for the previous 20 years. (About 1.5 years later, Gatterdam again would be caught using misspot dice but in London, England.)

Protocol Followed

Consequently, the NGCB closed the Incline Village Casino — standard procedure — and filed a formal complaint against its operators, Wood, who owned 90 percent, and Benjamin “Benny” Lassoff, the bartender there who owned 10 percent. Neither of them had been on the premises when the trickery occurred.

The NGCB recommended the NGC revoke Wood and Lassoff’s gambling licenses. That’s just what it did; it pulled them for a year.

“These procedures were established for two purposes, to protect players against cheating and to protect the reputation of the state,” stated an editorial published in the Las Vegas Sun (Nov. 3, 1967). “Should it ever become established that the state allowed a cheating operation to continue one minute after irregularities are detected or even strongly suspicioned, the fat’s in the fire for sure and there’ll be a field day for the ever-ready critics of our major industry.”

Business Left Hanging

Wood pleaded with the NGC to let him keep his license, saying he’d do whatever it would take. No dice. 

“I think this thing was handled unfairly,” Wood said. “But [the NGC] is the boss” (Nevada State Journal, Dec. 5, 1967).

Unable to run the casino, Wood sought to lease or sell his majority interest in it and even unload the restaurant and bar components he owned as well, if necessary.

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*A crossroader is a casino cheater; the term, which originated in the Old West, denoted someone who practiced their trickery at saloons located at crossroads.

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