While being plied with endless, free whisky highballs,* Hamilton Buck played roulette for hours at the Texas gambling-saloon** in Goldfield, Nevada. Then, in 1908, the northwestern mining town was nearing the end of its heyday (1904-1908) that had made it the state’s largest metropolis.

With Charles Green, a brother of one of the establishment’s proprietors comprising J.E. Burke & Co., operating the wheel, Buck had varied luck for a while. Ultimately, though, he found himself $1,000 (more than $26,000 today) in the hole.

He gave Green a $500 certificate of deposit (COD) he’d gotten from the local John S. Cook & Co. bank, and Green exchanged it for gold coins. With those, Buck continued to gamble at roulette. At first he won about $700 to $800 but eventually lost most or all of the $500. An intoxicated Buck left the establishment.

The next morning, he instructed the bank to cancel payment on the COD because Burke & Co. weren’t entitled to it legally. In response, Burke & Co. sued Buck and won; Cook & Co. had to make good on the COD. Dissatisfied with the outcome, Buck appealed, and J.E. Burke & Co. vs. Hamilton Buck went to the state’s high court.

James G. Sweeney

Significant Ruling

In January 1909, the Nevada Supreme Court reversed the Esmeralda County district court’s ruling and mandated that the saloon reimburse Buck the $500. The basis for the decision, Justice James G. Sweeney wrote in the opinion, was the Statute of 9 Anne, part of the revised English common law that became the basis of Nevada law upon statehood in 1864.

Based on the belief that gambling was against the public’s interest, the statute read: “… all notes, bills, bonds … given … by any person or persons whatsoever, where the hole or any part of the consideration … shall be for any money or other valuable thing whatsoever, won by gaming, … shall be utterly void, frustrate, and of none effect, to all intents and purposes, whatsoever, etc.“

Sweeney clarified that money won at a public gaming table is not recoverable by action in Nevada. He also noted that the statute stands regardless of whether gambling is considered by state law to be legal or illegal. (Later that year, the Nevada Legislature abolished gambling.)

Burke v. Buck was one of the earliest Silver State cases challenging the statute.

The Flip Side, Player v. Casino

In July 1958, the Nevada Supreme Court weighed in on the reverse, whether players may sue gambling clubs for alleged unpaid winnings. This came about through the lawsuit of Jack Weisbrod against the Fremont in Las Vegas. He claimed the casino refused to pay him the $12,500 ($111,000 today) he believed he’d won from playing keno.

The district judge rejected Weisbrod’s suit, and the high court jurists affirmed the ruling. They wrote that “if money won at gambling is not recoverable through resort to the courts, it is not because of who has won it but because of the nature of the transaction itself.”

They noted, too, that players have recourse through the state’s gambling regulators who will intervene on their behalf, if warranted.

A Long Stretch

Statute of 9 Anne endured in Nevada for 119 years despite several legal tests of it and attempts to have it reversed.

Casino owners in the state again lobbied for the latter in 1982 because of their “staggering money losses,” about $117 million ($311 billion today) that year for instance, and because their Atlantic City, New Jersey competitors could collect on markers, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported (Dec. 17, 1982).

When the legislature was in session the following year, it passed Senate Bill 335 allowing gambling establishments to pursue in the courts the monies owed to them.

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* A whisky highball at the Texas consisted of Scotch whisky and mineral water.

** The Texas burned down in 1914.

Photo from freeimages.com: “Money Series 6” by mokra

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1931-1932

Actors Clara Bow and Rex Bell gambled at the Meadows in Las Vegas in summer 1931 and racked up a $1,100 loss (about $18,000 today), for which they left an IOU. By December, the two hadn’t paid what they owed (Bow had wriggled out of covering a gaming debt the year before).

The casino owners — Anthony “The Admiral” Cornero Stralla, his brother Louis Cornero and various mobsters — sued the couple in December for recovery of the funds. The next day, Bow and Bell secretly married in Sin City.

A mysterious incident occurred about 1.5 months later. The newlyweds spent an evening playing games of chance at Vegas’ Boulder Club. After winning about $1,000 playing craps, Bow departed for home, leaving her winnings with her husband, who stayed at the casino.

When Bell eventually left, on his way out, two masked men robbed him. “They prodded the guns so hard in his ribs he decided not to resist them and permitted them to take the money, he said,” reported the Nevada State Journal.

Photo from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas’ Special Collections

Rhyolite, Nevada in the 1920s

1908

Johnny-Behind-the-Gat bet more than he should’ve.

He was a prospector and miner said to have little common sense, a big temper and a penchant for using his weapon to solve disputes.

John Cyty (his real name), in a 12-hour roulette game, bet and lost $75,000 worth of shares (a roughly $2 million value today) of his company, the Big Bell Mine Co. in Death Valley, California. In doing so, he ceded control of the business to C.E. Jones, the owner of the Stock Exchange gambling rooms in Rhyolite, Nevada, just across the border from the mine.

Photo from Utah State University’s Special Collections, Merrill-Cazier Library

1938

Esquire* Harry T. Clifton was a wealthy Englishman who owned racing stables and often visited Southern California.

During his visit there in April 1938, he gambled with Lew Brice and Tommy Guinan in a Long Beach hotel.

Brice was the brother of comedienne Fanny Brice, and a former stage dancer and comedian in his own right. Guinan was the brother of Mary Louis “Texas” Guinan, an exuberant actress and speakeasy owner during Prohibition.

The three and two other men began with a friendly game of bridge. They moved to poker, in which Clifton was “slightly conversant.” During one 12-minute game, the Brit lost $150,000 (about $2.6 million today)!  He bet it all on two pair — kings and jacks. Brice won the pot with a winning hand of three of a kind — sevens.

To pay his debt, Clifton wrote two checks — one for $100,000 on a London bank account and the other for $50,000 on a New York one — which he gave Brice.

You Did What?

When the esquire relayed the story to his confidante, Violet Greener, the pastor of the Mystic Agabec temple in Hollywood, she suggested he’d been duped. She advised him to stop payment on the checks.

Clifton’s attorney filed an injunction in court to do just that because:

• Brice had won the $150,000 by trickery

• Brice had misrepresented his ability to pay such an amount had he lost the game

• Clifton lacked the funds to cover the amount

The judge granted a temporary restraining order against Brice, which halted the checks from being processed.

Stud V. Draw Query

Meanwhile, investigators for the district attorney’s office looked into the case, trying to determine whether the poker game was of the stud or draw** type. This mattered because the former was illegal but the latter was allowed in California.

Clifton, Brice and Guinan recounted different stories. Whereas Clifton noted the game was stud, the other two said it was draw. As for the amount in the big pot, the debtor maintained it was $150,000, Guinan said it was $100,000 of Clifton’s money and Brice contended it was $40,000.

Later, it came to light that Brice owed a Danish actress/pianist $100,000 from a legal judgment four years earlier, perhaps his motive for allegedly swindling Clifton.

D.A. investigators sought two ladies who had celebrated with Brice and Guinan after the game to see if they could say what type of poker it had been. They also wanted to talk to the man who dealt the game, a George Lewis, but he apparently had gone to Texas supposedly to “look after some oil interests” (Nevada State Journal, May 5, 1938). It’s unknown whether the investigators found and spoke to those individuals.

Unexpectedly, Brice suddenly agreed to waive all rights to the $150,000, perhaps fearing he could be prosecuted because they had in fact played stud, the illegal version. He said he’d leave it to Clifton to act honorably regarding payment.

To Hearth And Home

A few days after the big losing game, Clifton’s wife Lillian, former Boston society lady, phoned the Los Angeles police from England and asked them to do whatever they could to help the man save his money until she got to California.

“Keep your eye on my husband and that ghost woman,” she said, referring to Greener. “Put him in jail, if you have to” (The Morning Avalanche, May 10, 1938).

The police captain nicely told her they had no reason to detain her beloved.

In May, Clifton and his attorney requested the D.A. drop the matter, which he did.

Deciding it best to return to England, the esquire, unshaven and appearing disheveled, went to the airport. Greener accompanied him to see him off. Her daughter met them there and told Clifton she’d received two phone calls from a man who said, “We’ll get you and everyone concerned in this matter” (Nevada State Journal, May 12, 1938).

Clifton told reporters he planned to rest for a while in New York before sailing back home. He kissed Greener and boarded the plane.

In a postscript, late that year, law enforcement officers in San Francisco arrested and jailed Brice on a vagrancy charge. The judge, however dismissed it with the warning that Fanny’s sibling not get into card games in that city.

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* Historically, in the United Kingdom, esquire was a title of respect bestowed on men of higher social standing, above the rank of gentleman and below that of knight.

** In draw poker, all of the cards are dealt face down whereas in stud, some are dealt face up.

Sources

1964

The Dunes in Las Vegas, Nevada switched from writing off unpaid IOUs to claiming them as income, allegedly to keep Internal Revenue Service agents from harassing its customers — asking guests in the hotel if they paid what they owed.

On its fiscal 1965 income tax return, the hotel-casino reported as income $1.3 million (about $7.2 million today) in markers it considered not collectable. 

Photo from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas’ University Libraries

1975

In the spring, Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder, a Las Vegas oddsmaker and bookie, punched, knocked down and kicked casino magnate, Nathan Jacobson, in a Caesars Palace hallway in a confrontation over a debt he claimed Jacobson owed him, so alleged Jacobson in his battery lawsuit against Snyder.

A witness told police they saw Snyder hit Jacobson’s jaw with a right hook, felling him. Jacobson had been part owner and president of the hotel-casino in the mid-1960s; Snyder had done public relations for the property then. The disputed debt was for a business deal — perhaps past gambling monies or wages owed.

The week after filing his suit, the 125-pound, 60-year-old Jacobson publicly challenged Snyder, 58, who weighed 185 pounds, to a boxing match, proposing the event’s proceeds go to charity.

Snyder’s response? “I’ll have no comment concerning anything as asinine as him or that.”

Two years later, after Snyder began his stint on the CBS Sunday morning show, “The NFL Today,” predicting the results of each week’s upcoming football games, a hearing concerning the charges took place in Sin City. Jacobson, however, at the time lobbying for a new $60 million hotel-casino in Spain, didn’t show.

The judge dismissed the misdemeanor charges against Snyder.

Sources

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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