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

Sources

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.

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.

1940

“Apparently unaware that gold has been forbidden as a medium of exchange, a tall, dark complexioned cowpuncher walked into a [Reno, Nevada] gambling club last night and startled the dealer by casually dropping a handful of gold coins on the 21 table,” reported the Reno Evening Gazette (May 18, 1940).

At that time, personal ownership of gold coins and bullion had been illegal for seven years. It was punishable with a prison sentence of up to 10 years and a fine of double the amount of the value of the gold retained.

Photo from Pond5.com: by Fireflyphoto

1967

The month following closure of its on-site Bullpen casino, the Nevada State Prison sold the brass coins that inmates had used for decades (since 1932) for wagering and as currency. Sets, containing one coin of each denomination — $0.05, $0.10, $0.25, $0.50, $1 and $5 — went for $30 to $50 apiece, depending on their condition.

Proceeds went to the facility’s Inmate Welfare Fund, which subsidized recreational activities.

1940

After some angry husbands in Los Angeles, California complained their wives were gambling away the grocery money, two vice squad officers raided the Monday night birthday party of Ann Dicker, a 73-year-old great-grandmother, at which she and seven guests were playing poker. (The policemen had climbed up the drainpipe to stealthily reach her second-floor apartment.)

The surprise intrusion yielded a pot of $2.70, “as it was a five-cent limit affair.”

The ladies were arrested, taken to jail and fined $10 apiece. (It was Dicker’s third arrest and fine for illegal gambling.)

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“A disgusting travesty on justice,” the police commissioner said of the arrests (Reno Evening Gazette, Aug. 15, 1940).

The main street in Elko, Nevada, 1940

1934

After hiding somewhere in the building, a person robbed the Bank Club casino’s safe of $500 in silver change (about $9,000 today) between 4 and 6 p.m. on a Wednesday in early December.

This particular Bank Club — a common name for Nevada gambling houses — was located in the town of Elko. The money belonged to Phil Heidt, who ran the club’s gaming.

Photo: by Arthur Rothstein

The hotel-casino resort in 1970

1970s

Caesars Palace in Las Vegas extended $160 million in credit to players in 1977. This was more than the then-considered staggering $106 million cost of the original MGM Grand (early ’70s), also in Sin City, and equals roughly $641 million today.

Offering credit to players who were deemed able to repay it was a common practice among Nevada casinos, and these IOUs, or markers, collectively could add up to great sums. In the 1970s the major casinos on the Las Vegas Strip had as much as $30 million in outstanding credit on their books ($135.5 million today) at any given time; for smaller off-Strip casinos, the figure was closer to $1 million ($4.5 million today).

1947

John Clark Bosworth, of Reno, 47, was sentenced to 10 days in the local jail for playing with fake $25 chips in a Las Vegas casino.

What do you think? Was this a light or heavy sentence?

Photo from freeimages.com, by John Nyberg

1925

As of 1915, Nevada gambling law only allowed slot machines that discharged tokens, or bingles, exchangeable for on-site merchandise; those that paid out in money or bingles redeemable for currency were forbidden.

“The fact remains, however, that the illegal money machines are running unmolested all over the state and particularly in Reno, under the noses of the state police, the county officers and the city authorities,” noted a Reno Evening Gazette opinion piece (March 13, 1925).

The Nevada Committee on Good Laws, whose members included a reverend and a university professor, took it upon itself to investigate “the slot machine evil,” reported the Reno Evening Gazette (May 2, 1925). The group initiated its efforts in part because it opposed a bill the legislature had introduced that year to allow wide-open gambling. Although the assembly killed the proposal, it didn’t stop the crusaders. Police officers of several counties grew concerned about the spotlight on one-armed bandits and encouraged owners or licensees to turn their illegal ones toward the wall.

In late March, the committee complained to District Attorney L.D. Summerfield that local businesses still were operating the banned devices and pressured him to crack down on these violations. Summerfield immediately informed officers of the law about the illegal activity, reiterated the relevant statutes and directed them to enforce it.

The following month, policemen seized slot machines deemed to be illegal, one each from the Overland hotel, Owl Club, Elite Cigar Store, Washoe Lunch Counter and Block N.

Machines, Owners At Risk

A hearing took place for the justice of the peace to determine the fate of the proprietors and their gambling equipment. If convicted of the misdemeanor charge, the men would be sentenced to a $50 to $100 fine and/or 25 to 50 days in county jail. The machines could be destroyed.

“Reformers and uplifters” packed the courtroom, “the crowd bulging through the doors into the hallway of city hall,” reported the Reno Evening Gazette (May 2, 1925).

Summerfield called the state’s first witness, Good Laws committee member, Otis Linn. The reverend testified that on April 27, when he and Professor F.C. Feemster had played the slot machines at each of the five enterprises on trial, the payouts contained nickels. He showed the court some coins he claimed the instruments had spit out; a single nickel was in the bunch.

In his cross-examination of Linn, the defense attorney pointed out that no pay-back-money machines pay out fewer than two nickels.

“Linn became vexed during that and hurled a handful of coins on the floor as a protest,” noted the Reno Evening Gazette (May 2, 1925). “The Justice of the Peace requested he pick them up.”

Feemster then took the stand and corroborated all that Linn had said. Summerfield even testified, saying money came out when he’d played the machines after they’d been seized.

The only defense witness was up next — A.A. Baroni, the co-proprietor of the Owl Club, Washoe Lunch Counter and Overland Hotel. He testified that all the apparatuses had been loaded with bingles but sometimes nickels the customers inserted to play trickled down into the bingle compartment due to a mechanical defect.

Perry Mason Ending

The five contraptions in question then were opened in court for a look-see. A total of about 300 bingles and 17 nickels were in the bingle bin!

Justice of the Peace Seth W. Longabaugh mulled over the case for three weeks then ruled.

Seemingly highly influenced by the in-court demonstration of what currency actually sat inside the machines, he found the gambling operators had not intended to break the law and, therefore, were innocent.

As such, the gaming devices weren’t to be destroyed but, rather, returned to their owners, which they subsequently were.

Sources