At a time when wide-open gambling was legal in Nevada (as of 1931), the penalty for operating a game of chance without a license was 60 days in the county jail or a $120 fine.

Photo from freeimages.com: “Jail Door” by Robin Turner

The 1869 statute partially legalizing gambling in Nevada prohibited any such operations in first floor rooms.

An 1877 revision allowed gambling in back rooms of a ground level in certain small counties.

In 1905 and on, gamblers statewide could hold games in any room on any floor.

Photo from freeimages.com: “Number One” by Audrey Volodov

In Nevada, where casino operators can employ shills to play in their clubs, it was established that a licensee may not act as a shill, gambling in their own establishment. Their spouse can’t either unless playing with money other than the licensee’s personal funds.

Photo from freeimages.com: “We’ve Got a Winner” by Dimitri C.

McGill Club in later years

1928

A woman named Gladys Anderson sued the McGill Club in McGill, Nevada for $5,000. It was the amount she claimed her husband had lost there playing poker.

The district court, however, dismissed her case because it lacked a cause of action (a set of facts sufficient to justify a right to sue and receive compensation from another party).

Following abolishment of gambling in Nevada, a Los Angeles moving picture company purchased and shipped to California a carful of equipment outlawed in 1909, including roulette wheels, faro tables and chuck-a-luck games.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons: “Boule-Kessel” by Pierre Poquet

Nevada legislators proposed a bill that would disallow any future installation of slot machines in grocery and drug stores, but it died in the Senate Taxation Committee.

Inside the Crystal Bay Club Casino at Lake Tahoe, Nevada, 1960s

1966

A 34-year-old 21 dealer at a Crystal Bay Club Casino at Lake Tahoe slipped $100 worth of gambling chips into her bra each day for a week before getting caught.

Once busted, she accepted termination of employment there.

Selig Zoo archway

1938

Gambler Tony Cornero Stralla offered to donate a day’s worth of revenue from his Southern California casino boat, the Rex, to Zoo Park at 3800 Mission Road in Los Angeles.

The attraction, then owned/operated by the California Zoological Society and formerly the Selig Zoo, was teetering on bankruptcy and its animals were facing starvation.

However, the group refused Cornero Stralla’s offer on the grounds it was “inadvisable to mix gambling with pennies contributed by school children” (Nevada State Journal, Oct. 14, 1938). Indeed, youths were donating what they could to save the zoo.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons/University of California—Los Angeles Library, Los Angeles Times photographic archive

1962

After the Seattle World’s Fair, or the Century 21 Exposition, the bronze coins used as trade dollars during that event appeared in slot machines throughout Nevada.

1969-1971

Patron Alvin Glasky sat in the Stardust hotel-casino’s showroom in Las Vegas, Nevada, watching Lido de Paris on a Saturday evening in 1969. As one of the topless showgirls was being lowered from the ceiling over the crowd, she fell off the platform and landed on him.

Two years later, Glasky filed a lawsuit, seeking $403,700 (about $2.5 million today) in damages for internal and external injuries caused by “a falling nude” (Desert Sun, April 1, 1971).

The outcome of the suit is unknown.