Cadell

1947-1950

Starting in 1947, Wiley “Buck” H. Cadell used his governmental position to build a statewide system of protection for illegal gambling operations in California, the first such concerted effort of this kind in the state. At the time Cadell worked as a gambling investigator, and previously an undercover agent, for California Attorney General Frederick N. Howser. Prior to that, he worked for 20 years as an officer for the Los Angeles Police Department.

Howser

Howser was in on (and perhaps the mastermind of) the conspiracy. His role was covering it up and shielding Cadell and his other agents — Charles Hoy and Walter Lentz — from external investigation and prosecution.

Hoy

Lentz

How It Worked

One part of setting up the protection racket involved getting all of the gamblers in a county to pay a monthly fee or close shop. In exchange, law enforcement wouldn’t interfere with their illegal business.

From gambling house owners, the colluding agents demanded anywhere from 20 to 50 percent of their enterprise’s gross earnings. For slot machine operators, the fee was $4 apiece. For punchboard users, it was $2. (A different group of men was involved in organizing a punchboard monopoly and protection system in The Golden State. They, too, did this with Howser’s blessing.)

For the protection scheme to work, the conspirators also had to get the police chief or sheriff in the same county on board. This meant the officers of the law had to agree to ignore the commercial gambling happening in their jurisdiction. For doing so, they’d receive a portion of the collected payoff monies. Another part of the graft went to Howser.

To sway these law enforcement heads, Howser’s representatives emphasized they had powerful friends in Sacramento. They even often outrightly stated they “had the approval and the authority of the attorney general’s office,” the California Crime Commission reported in its Final Report (Nov. 15, 1950).

Progress Made

Howser’s agents worked on expanding the scheme for over a year. During that time, they approached many of California’s counties. The crime commission knew of at least 16, including Los Angeles, San Luis Obispo and San Bernardino. There may have been more.

Unraveling Begins

Cadell’s involvement ended in June 1948 when he was indicted for related activity (and thus, quit working for Howser). The ensuing charges were for organizing a slot machine protection racket and for plotting to bribe Mendocino County Sheriff Beverly Broaddus.

Howser publicly announced he fully supported Cadell. The elected official also claimed the charges against the agent had been trumped up to frame him.

Despite the AG’s position, a jury convicted Cadell (and two others, a former police officer and a resident, both of Los Angeles), each on five counts of bribery and gambling conspiracy. The judge sentenced Cadell, whom he identified as the “arch conspirator,” to three consecutive prison terms (The Modesto Bee and News-Herald, Dec. 18, 1948). They were 1 to 14 years followed by another 1 to 14 years and, lastly, 1 to 3 years.

“This was not a case of operation of an isolated slot machine,” the judge told the defendants, “but the crimes with which you are charged are more serious, about as dastardly as any crimes that are committed” (The Modesto Bee, Dec. 18, 1948).

As for Howser, no irrefutable evidence linked him to the payoffs. However, “he was tainted by the association,” author Ed Cray wrote in Chief Justice.

Impact Of The Unwilling

Not every person Howser’s men approached on both sides, law enforcement and gambling, was keen on the scheme. Some rejected the proposal outright.

One gambler, Tiny Heller, an Alameda County bookmaker, refused to pay any graft. He was told by a member of the protection racket, Mobster-gambler Dave Kessel, that he could keep operating through the end of the football season but not afterwards. Heller continued taking bets. Soon after, before the deadline to close that Kessel cited, Heller’s business was raided, and Hoy arrested him.

Many other targets filed complaints or informed the crime commissioners about various people having tried to recruit them into the scheme. The crime agency detailed and published all such reported events in its 1950 report.

That exposure, combined with Cadell’s conviction and Howser’s failure to get re-elected in 1950, caused the system to crumble.

Sources

1928-1972

Samuel “Sam” F. Termini (1903-1972) was known as a small-time racketeer who worked at and operated gambling enterprises mostly for others.

Here are 10 interesting tidbits about him and his life:

Gambling History

1) Termini was associated with Kansas City Mobster Charles Binaggio. Born and raised in Missouri, Termini had worked for Binaggio before moving to California in 1939 and was one of his godsons.

2) Termini became involved in gambling in Kansas City, Missouri, where, reportedly, he owned and operated some type of business at 404 Independence Avenue where he offered illegal gambling

In Northern California, Termini managed the illegal gambling at the Willow Tree in Colma (San Mateo County), co-owned by Mobsters Emilio Giorgetti and Elmer “Bones” F. Remmer. He held this job from 1942 until the sheriff closed the club in 1947. Also, Termini owned a 10 percent interest in the operation.

Subsequently, in the same county, Termini, using the alias Sam Murray, rented some space in the Silver Saddle tavern-café, in which he debuted and ran the Skyline Club in Redwood City. The illegal gambling there included craps and blackjack.

Termini leased and managed the gambling concession at the Tahoe-Biltmore in Crystal Bay, Nevada during the warm weather season of 1949.

Starting around the mid- to late 1950s (see No. 9), Termini worked as a pit boss at the Horseshoe Club in Las Vegas, Nevada. At the time, his former associate Giorgetti owned it.

3) When Termini ran legal gambling at the Tahoe-Biltmore, Binaggio visited the financially troubled property and decided to bankroll his godson in what was to be “the biggest gambling joint west of the Rockies,” reported the California crime commission in its 1953 report. However, the assassination of Binaggio on April 6, 1950 ended the plan.

4) Police busted Termini for illegal gambling in 1928 at his Kansas City establishment and fined $25 (about $410 today).

Custom Home

5) Termini had a custom home built for him and his family in Hillsborough, California. Constructing a home at the time, in 1946, required veteran’s priority, which Termini didn’t have. So he transferred title of his property and obtained building permits for it in the name of a nephew, a World War II veteran living in Missouri, Jesse LaBoi. This was illegal.

6) Once completed, Termini’s home was an impenetrable fortress. A heavy electronic fence surrounded the property and was controlled from an underground room. This barrier was equipped with a ring of electric eyes linked to an alarm and motion activated floodlights. Gates allowed for entry but only through controls on the Terminis’ cars or by telephoning an unlisted number. The door to the wine cellar was armor plated. An house-wide intercom allowed Termini to hear any and all conversations taking place anywhere inside the home.

Suits Against Him

7) In 1951, the general contractor and the architectural firm that built and designed Termini’s house, respectively, sued him. The former asked for $103,000 ($1.1 million. The latter asked for $16,000 ($107,000 today). Both amounts were the unpaid balances owed them for their services. The case went to trial, and jurors ruled only in favor of Marshall. They awarded him $126,523 ($1.4 million), including interest and court costs.

8) The federal government tried Termini in 1952 for under-reporting his and his wife’s income and underpaying the amount of federal income taxes they owed. The years for which he was charged were between 1945 and 1949 for his taxes and 1945 and 1947 for hers. Termini was found guilty of tax evasion in the amount of about $92,000 ($976,000 today). The judge sentenced him to three years in federal prison and a fine of $20,000 ($212,000 today).

Last 20 Years

9) For the tax evasion, Termini spent three years in the McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary. After getting released, he reportedly lived and worked in Las Vegas. Eventually, he moved to Reno, Nevada.

10) Termini passed away on June 12, 1972 at age 69 in Reno. His body was interred at Mountain View Cemetery.

Sources

1934

A man named Hans Brucksmer played about $15 worth of nickels (about $300 today) in a slot machine at a place of business in Seattle, Washington and got only four coins back. He lifted the machine and took it to the local police station.

There, holding the device under one arm, he filled out a complaint form, claiming the machine had cheated him! (It’s unknown what he thought the machine’s purpose was.) Of course, no recourse was given to Brucksmer as his claim was meritless.

What did happen, though, was the police arrested and jailed the owner of the establishment for possessing illegal gambling paraphernalia.

Source: Reno Evening Gazette (Nev.), “Loses Nickels So He Complains Against Machine,” April 6, 1934.

1943-1944

Had it not been for a shifty plan Tony “Joe Batters” Accardo and/or his attorney, George Bieber dreamed up, the Mobster might’ve gone to prison at age 37, in 1944, for illegal gambling.

Cigar Store As Front

A high-ranking Outfit member, Accardo had been operating a bookmaking enterprise out of the Ogden building at 192 N. Clark St. in Chicago, Illinois. Interactions with bettors had taken place there via phone in the Drive Inn Smoke Shop on the first floor. Wires from 25 phones had occupied two upper floors ran and connected to a switchbox in a single room on the fourth level.

Following a successful police raid of the Ogden in November 1943, Accardo and nine of his employees were indicted and arrested.

Fancy Legal Footwork

Subsequently, the state of Illinois and Accardo/Bieber agreed that Accardo would join the U.S. Army and, accordingly, the district attorney’s office would nolle pros (not prosecute) his case. The parties cemented the deal in court.

As required, Accardo reported to the local draft board just days later. However, he shared with them his criminal history and standing in The Outfit. He “was summarily rejected by the Army as morally unfit,” according to The Chicago Syndicate website.

This stratagem resulted in dismissal of the charges against Accardo (and the others) and his avoidance of military service to boot.

Sources

During the Prohibition years in California, 1919 to 1934, San Mateo County was a hotbed for illegal vices — gambling, prostitution and drinking. Even a Mobster, Hillsborough-based Sam Termini, said the county was the state’s most corrupt one in 1930. This was under the watch of James J. McGrath, the sheriff for 24 years starting in 1926.

McGrath

“There were numerous wide-open gambling joints operating in county territory under his jurisdiction; slot machines were operating in these establishments as well as in other public places; and bookmaking enterprises flourished throughout the county,” reported California’s Final Report of The Special Crime Study Commission on Organized Crime (1953).

Nothing changed after Prohibition ended except bootleggers moved into gambling.

“After years of violating liquor laws, the general attitude toward crime had softened. … Bookies prospered through illegal off-track betting and gambling dens,” wrote Carmen J. Blair in “The Most Corrupt County.”

Big, Big Business

Fast forward to 1949, and McGrath still was in office.* In his county, in the unincorporated community of Colma,** “Red” MacDonald (or McDonald, the spelling and true first name couldn’t be verified) launched a bookmaking enterprise, his area of expertise. The operation primarily was telephone based and a layoff spot for other U.S. bookies. It also served, though, as a West Coast clearinghouse for betting monies coming from and going to other areas of the country.

The business reportedly handled about $100,000 to $200,000 a day (about $1.2 to $2.3 million today).

The California organized crime commission dubbed it the Olmo Group because MacDonald ran it on George Olmo’s ranch and horse stables property, on Washington Street in Broadmoor Village.

“[The book] had operated virtually unmolested during nearly two years during this entire time with the connivance of certain law enforcement officials,” according to the Final Report, its findings based on the testimony of subpoenaed witnesses at hearings.

In Tight With Lawmen

MacDonald paid about $1,000 ($12,000 today) weekly in the form of bribes, most of them “related in one way or another to Sheriff James J. McGrath,” the Final Report noted.

McGrath ordered the occasional raid on the Olmo land, but no arrests were made. At most, officers removed telephones.  

Various relationships between lawmen and various Olmo associates were blatant conflicts of interest. For instance, all of the horse riding members of the San Mateo Sheriff’s Office kept their horses at the Olmo stables.

Also, the deputy sheriff, Milton Minehan, who went on all raids, was related by marriage to John O’Neil, a feed and grain dealer who partly financed the Olmo bookmaking endeavor and personally handled bets. O’Neil and McGrath were good friends.

Further, when the Olmo group’s bagman, collector and enforcer, Richard “Big Dick” Charles Trabert, transported large sums of money from or to the ranch, certain San Francisco Police Department officers escorted him.

The Other Principals

In addition to MacDonald, O’Neil and Trabert, the following men helped bankroll the Olmo bookmaking business:

Emilio “Gombo” Georgetti: an alleged member of the San Francisco-based Lanza Crime Family and the boss of all San Mateo County gambling activities for many years, including slot machine distribution. He ran several gambling establishments there, too, including the Willow Tree in Colma. Georgetti and Sheriff McGrath were close friends.

Ralph Cody: a longtime bookmaker involved in football and basketball pools.

Abe Fox: a bookmaker.

Cody and Fox had been arrested in 1946 in a raid on a different bookmaking business in San Francisco.

Reportedly, Arthur “Artie” H. Samish had financed Cody and Fox in the Olmo operation. Samish was a California lobbyist, representing the interests of race track owners, liquor and brewing producers, movie studios, attorneys and insurers.

John “Red” Robert Gregory: a race horse owner and trainer and a former associate of Southern California’s Guarantee Finance Company bookmaking syndicate.

Frank “Porky” X. Flynn: a lobbying associate of Samish

Circumstances Change

The Olmo group closed their enterprise in Colma in June 1950 and planned to move it to San Francisco as it is in a different county. Two major factors precipitated this: the odds were long that McGrath would get re-elected for a fifth term in the upcoming election, and the book’s leader MacDonald passed away earlier in the year. 

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* McGrath’s 24-year tenure as San Mateo County sheriff was the longest ever in the history of the office.

** Colma, known today as the City of Souls, always has been home to more dead bodies than living people. Due to cemetery overcrowding in San Francisco in the early 20th century, 150,000-plus corpses were transferred to and buried in Colma, which, since, was and still today is the burial ground for The City by The Bay.

Photo of money-filled suitcase from pond5.com: by maxxyustas

Sources

1903

“Accommodation for Johnny Ox,” a gambling-related headline in the Nevada State Journal, March 17, 1903, puzzled us. Curious (read: obsessive), we set out to decipher it.

The brief news item relayed two gambling saloons in Reno — the Louvre and the Oberon —planned to build an upper level onto their one-story building in which to offer games of chance, per the new law. Accordingly, gambling no longer could take place on the ground floor, even if it was in a back room. Rather, it had to be confined to the second floor.

Given that information, it seems reasonable to assume “Johnny Ox” was a personified reference to gambling. But from where did the name come? Who was Johnny Ox?

Answer In The Midwest

As far as could be determined, the name came from a true story out of Indianapolis, Indiana. There, a man named Johnny Ox had been arrested numerous times for being involved in running illegal gambling. Each time, he’d paid his fine and, apparently, had gone right back to taking part in the illicit operations.

At some point, someone realized there was no Johnny Ox listed in the city directory and, thus, must not have been the real name of the man. His true identity became a brief mystery among the officers.

Once they figured it out, The Indianapolis News reported it. It turns out Johnny Ox was the alias of a well-known gambler in the area named T. Thompson.

“His business is to look after the kitty in the various poker games with which he has been associated for years,” the newspaper reported (Nov. 19, 1903).

That year Thompson began working for the syndicate that owned, controlled and operated nearly all of the gambling in Indianapolis. Two partners, Fred Heier and Jack Shea, were behind the group, offering poker, high-limit poker, craps and roulette at various locations in the city. Previously, Thompson had worked for William “Bill” Kissel, a small-time operator who ran a single poker game in Indianapolis.

A New Question Arises

What we of It Really Happened! can’t figure out is this:

How did a Reno newspaperman know the Johnny Ox story such that he alluded to it in the March headline when the first published reference to Ox in Indianapolis didn’t happen until eight months later, in November?

Our search of two databases of historical newspapers didn’t turn up any other Johnny Ox references going back to 1895, but that’s not to say one didn’t exist, somewhere.

Implausible Alternate Theory

Research also revealed that “Johnny Ox” and “Johnny Bull” interchangeably had represented the Saxon people, as they’d been enslaved and “held under the yoke” of the Normans (Oregon City Courier, July 16, 1914). The symbol grew, however, to represent English people as a whole.

Later, the two Johnnys morphed into John Bull, a symbol of the United Kingdom, much like Uncle Sam is to the U.S.

We try substituting “the Brits” or “the U.K.” for “Johnny Ox” in “Accommodation for Johnny Ox.” In this new context, the headline doesn’t make sense (unless we’re missing something), so we discredit this hypothesis.

Ultimately, we return to our Indianapolis gambler theory.

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Can you add any information? We’d love to learn what you know.

Sources

The maximum security, federal prison opened in 1934 on Alcatraz Island, 1.25 miles from the coast of San Francisco, California. The facility housed 1,576 of the U.S.’ most dangerous felons, treatment of whom was, at times, brutal and inhumane there. Over time, the penitentiary infrastructure deteriorated to the point where it needed rehabbing. The U.S. government deemed it more prudent to build a new prison rather than overhaul Alcatraz and closed it in 1963.

Among the 1,576 criminals for whom The Rock was home for some duration are five Mobster-gamblers. They are:

Whitey Bulger

In 1956, at age 27, James Joseph Bulger, Jr. (1929-2018) Bulger found himself locked up in the U.S. Federal Penitentiary, Atlanta, facing 20 years for armed robbery of several banks and truck hijacking. When the warden learned the inmate had been plotting to escape, he had Bulger transferred to Alcatraz in 1959. Bulger remained imprisoned there until 1962, then served the rest of his time at two other federal prisons. He was paroled in 1965.

Subsequently, he was an enforcer for the Winter Hill Gang in Somerville (near Boston), Massachusetts. By 1979, he’d became the boss and controlled a large part of Boston’s bookmaking, drug dealing and loansharking operations. While in power, he sanctioned numerous murders and turned FBI informant in 1975.

Bulger went into hiding in the mid-1990s, thereby landing on the FBI’s Most Wanted Fugitives list. He eluded capture until 2011, after which he was tried and found guilty of 11 murders, federal racketeering, extortion and conspiracy.

After FBI agents found and arrested Bulger, he told CNN, “If I could choose my epitaph on my tombstone, it would be, ‘I’d rather be in Alcatraz,'” CBS in San Francisco reported (Aug. 12, 2013).

Frankie Carbo

Paul John Carbo (1904-1976) began his life of crime as a gunman for the New York-based Murder, Inc. enforcement-for-hire group. (He was arrested 17 times for murder and rumored to have assassinated Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel.)

Eventually, Carbo became a member of the New York City Mafia’s Lucchese crime family, a partner in a New Jersey bookmaking ring and a corrupt boxing promoter.

“Frankie Carbo had become the Mob’s unofficial commissioner for boxing and controlled many fighters,” Gary Jenkins wrote in Gangland Wire. In that role, he illegally generated revenue from stealing part of boxers’ purses, fixing bouts and gambling on those.

One of Carbo’s various boxing extortion schemes involved muscling in on the promotional rights to boxer Don Jordan after he won the world welterweight championship in 1958. Carbo was caught threatening promoter Jackie Leonard and convicted of conspiracy and extortion in a trial Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy prosecuted.

The feds sent Carbo to Alcatraz with a 25-year federal prison sentence. When the penitentiary closed in 1963, Carbo was relocated to the McNeil Island Corrections Center in Washington.

Charles Carrollo

For many years, Charles Vincent Carrollo (1902-1979) was the Kansas City Mafia’s lug man, collector of the tax it charged the gambling houses to operate. The Combine controlled a $20 million ($307 million today) a year gambling business in the city as well as other rackets. When the boss John Lazia was assassinated, Carrollo took over as the top dog.  

His reign was short-lived, though, because soon after, he was convicted separately of tax evasion, mail fraud (using the U.S. postal service to promote a gambling scheme) and perjury for lying on his naturalization form. While doing his eight years at the U.S. Federal Penitentiary, Leavenworth, he was caught trafficking narcotics and liquor into the facility. For that, he was sent to Alcatraz in 1943, where he stayed until he was granted parole in 1946.

Mickey Cohen

After 20-plus years of working for the National Crime Syndicate in Los Angeles, Meyer Harris Cohen (1913-1976) lost his battle with the Internal Revenue Service in 1961. At age 49, he was imprisoned at Alcatraz for a 15-year stint for evading and underpaying his federal income taxes.

He served three months there then bonded out, the only Alcatraz prisoner to do so. After six months of freedom, he had to go back. Twenty-eight days after his return, fellow inmates John and Clarence Anglin escaped the supposedly impenetrable island prison. Allegedly, Cohen had arranged for a boat to pick up the brothers and for help getting them to South America.

“All of these big named people — Mickey Cohen, Whitey Bulger — they all wanted somebody to try it and make it,” one of the Anglin’s nephews, David Widmer, told a news outlet in 2016. “If somebody made it, they would all get out.”

Cohen’s involvement in gambling went back to his years in Chicago during Prohibition. There, he worked for the Outfit, both running card games and other forms of illegal gambling and as an enforcer.

Eventually, Meyer Lansky and Louis “Lou” Rothkopf sent Cohen to the West Coast to help Siegel gain control of the territory. There, Siegel and Cohen established a horse racing wire service, launched operations in bookmaking, other gambling, prostitution and drugs, and controlled the labor unions.

Bumpy Johnson

Ellsworth Raymond Johnson’s (1905-1968) career in illegal gambling started with shooting dice for money as a youth. Later, as the head of organized crime in New York’s Harlem, he ran a $50 million ($750 million today) a year numbers, or policy, game, in an alliance with Charles “Lucky” Luciano.

To obtain that business, Johnson “ran roughshod over the numbers bosses of Harlem, giving them the option of working for him or losing their businesses altogether,” reported the New York Post (Sept. 23, 2019). “Most accepted the former and took $200-per-week ($3,000 a week today) salaries, forsaking the thousands they earned on their own.”

Johnson expanded his empire to narcotics, which led to his 1953 conviction and 15-year prison sentence for selling heroin. Ultimately, he served 10 years, at Alcatraz.

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Photo of Alcatraz Island: by D. Ramey Logan, from Wikimedia Commons 

Sources

In its July 1966 raid of Kress Manufacturing Co. in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents seized a treasure trove of crooked gambling equipment that seemed headed to various Nevada casinos.

The haul included “hundreds of decks of marked cards and hundreds of pounds of crooked dice” (Nevada State Journal, July 27, 1966). The latter contained stamped logos of various major casinos in Las Vegas, Reno, Lake Tahoe and Elko along with smaller clubs throughout The Silver State. They included the:

Dunes — Las Vegas
Louisiana Club — Las Vegas
New Frontier — Las Vegas
Stardust — Las Vegas
Golden Bank — Reno
Riverside Hotel — Reno
Commercial Hotel — Elko
Crumley Hotel — Elko
El Bo Room — Wells
Cal-Neva Lodge – Crystal Bay (Lake Tahoe)

Agents also confiscated various other implements used to cheat at gambling. Among them were metal filings and discs used to weight dice; arm mirror manipulators and glasses used to read marked cards; holdout devices to secret away a desirable card for later use; magnets and magnetic coils used to control dice when rolled; and switches and relays used in rigging equipment like roulette wheels.

The search also turned up Kress invoices that showed the Tulsa gaming equipment manufacturer shipped its products to establishments throughout the U.S. Recipients included the Stardust and Riviera hotel-casinos in Las Vegas and the Citizens Club in Hot Springs, Arkansas.

Casinos Deny Wrongdoing

As soon as the news of the search and seizure went public, proponents of Nevada gambling reacted.

Officials from the Riviera, Stardust, Louisiana Club, Riverside, Dunes and the Commercial Hotel all publicly denied using any kind of cheating device. They never ordered gambling equipment from Kress Manufacturing, they said. In fact, they never heard of it.

“I never knew [Kress] existed until right now. This comes to me out of the clear blue sky,” said James Lloyd, president of Riverside Hotel Inc. However, he continued, “This happens lots of times. Some of these companies make crooked equipment to sell to crossroaders who try to cheat the house.”

State Agency Weighs In

Edward “Ed” Olsen, chairman of the Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB), the state’s gambling investigative arm, publicly made four points.

1) This happened before (which was true) and, thus, there is no cause for alarm. 

2) History shows that such cheating paraphernalia is not for Nevada casinos to swindle their customers with but, instead, it’s for individual career cheaters, or crossroaders, to use to cheat the gambling houses

3) To err on the side of caution, though, the NGCB will look into whether or not any of the state’s casinos ordered rigged equipment, but sending gaming agents to Tulsa isn’t necessary.

4) The Golden Bank Club, the El Bo Room and Crumley Hotel, the logos of which were on some of the found dice, no longer offer gambling or are out of business (this was true). The El Bo has been closed for 10 years.

Newspapers Take Side

When the Las Vegas Sun reported the news of the found cache of illegal gambling devices, it used the biased headline, “Foil Plot to Cheat Casinos.” It explained what that meant with a slanted lead, or opening line: “A national plot to cheat top casinos throughout Nevada was uncovered yesterday by the FBI in Tulsa, Okla.” (July 27, 1966).

Reno’s Nevada State Journal published an op-ed piece that refuted any possible merit to the notion some Nevada casinos cheated their customers. It read: “The gamblers and the state gaming officials know that the Tulsa dice were intended for use against the Nevada casinos. So, from a standpoint of the casinos being innocent of buying cheating gambling devices, there is no question. They just simply don’t do it” (July 18, 1966).

“Anyone who knows anything about gambling, however, knows immediately that the implication that the bigger Nevada gambling houses may be buying crooked dice or cards to cheat their patrons is just plain ridiculous,” the writer went on. “That the casinos, and particularly the big casinos, would risk, their licenses, representing millions of dollars in investment, by using crooked playing equipment is beyond comprehension.”

Also, the writer called out the FBI for intentionally misleading the public to think, by not saying otherwise in its report of the Kress raid, that the crooked equipment was intended for casinos not crossroaders.

An Opposing View

Op-ed writer Paul Harvey for The Ada Evening News in Oklahoma purported that Nevada’s gambling industry wasn’t as squeaky clean as it wanted the country to believe. In a published piece titled “No Gamble,” he wrote:

“Las Vegas is not going to incriminate itself. We are going to learn nothing new from this recent self-investigation. A hearing where the bosses are not subpoenaed and the witnesses are not under oath and the sessions are secret could hardly be anything but a whitewash. Accusers say the games are rigged and the cream is skimmed by the underworld before the casinos compute their taxable income, but you can hardly expect the State Gaming Commission to indict itself.

“We’d all heard the naive say, “Mathematical odds on cards, craps and roulette favor the house: they don’t have to cheat!’ Now the FBI has shown us that they do anyway. But the swindle goes on and the suckers stand in line and the casinos continue their business as usual” (Sept. 13, 1966).

Next week in Part II, read about the gambling investigation that led to the Kress raid, the indictment of 15 people including a Las Vegas-based dice maker and the legal outcomes for the key players.

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Louisiana Club chip photo: from the Museum of Gaming History’s Chip Guide

Sources

1920s-1960s

Joseph “Doc” Stacher (né Gdale Oistaczer)* was a New Jersey-based Mobster who made his foray into organized crime with Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel and Meyer Lansky’s Bugs and Meyer Mob in Manhattan, N.Y. and then with Abner “Longie” Zwillman’s Third Ward Gang in Newark, N.J.

Eventually, he teamed up with local Mobsters, including Zwillman and Lansky, in various gambling businesses inside and outside of the United States. We briefly describe some of them.

United States — New Jersey

The East European immigrant, Zwillman and New York Mobster Frank “The Prime Minister” Costello were partners with New Yorker Frank Erickson in a hugely successful bookmaking operation during the 1930s and 1940s, thanks to Erickson’s mathematical acumen. At one point, the large enterprise boasted as many as 600 locations and 3,000 unofficial staff members throughout the U.S.

Also with Costello and Zwillman, Stacher ran “many New Jersey gambling emporia, from ‘sawdust joints,’ meaning undecorated betting factories, to ‘carpet joints,’ whose decor was swank, food exquisite, ambiance muted and clientele selectively rich,” wrote “Voice of Broadway” columnist Jack O’Brian (Monroe-News Star, March 17, 1977).

In 1938, Stacher and fronts, Barney “Sugie” Sugerman and Abe Green, founded Runyon Sales Co. The Newark-based company manufactured and distributed automatic coin-operated machines, including slot machines, pinball machines and jukeboxes.

United States — New York

Stacher ran the Arrowhead Inn, an illegal Saratoga Springs carpet joint, which he and lifelong friend Lansky owned and at times had additional owners, including Joe Adonis, associated with the Genovese crime family, and Jersey Mobster James “Piggy” Lynch. The lake house closed in 1949.

United States — Nevada

Stacher entered Nevada’s gambling industry in 1950, when he purchased, likely at Lansky’s urging, Jack Sullivan’s one-third interest in the then-popular Bank Club, “one of Reno’s oldest and best known gambling casinos in Reno,” (Nevada State Journal, June, 30, 1950). Local Mobsters William “Bill/Curly” Graham and James “Jim/Cinch” McKay co-owned it.

After making the move versus before, as required by Silver State law, Stacher sought a gambling license from the state and the city. He boasted that if he ran into trouble getting those, he simply would pay what he needed to, up to $250,000 ($2.7 million today). to make it happen. Regardless, the Nevada Tax Commission denied him the requisite license, and, thus, he had to forfeit his Bank Club stake.

Stacher and Lansky also focused on Las Vegas. There, along with Costello, the two provided the capital for construction of the Sands Hotel and Casino, which debuted in 1952. Behind the scenes, Stacher ran the gambling there while someone else, Texas gambler Jake Freedman for one, was the front. Also on behalf of Lansky, Stacher allegedly was involved, too, with the casino at the Fremont, which opened in 1956.

“Doc Harris virtually ran Las Vegas with more access to its gambling cash than Howard Hughes has now,” O’Brian wrote in 1971 (Monroe-News Star).

Caribbean — Cuba, Haiti, The Bahamas

During the 1940s when gambling was legal in Cuba, Stacher ran various casinos there for Lansky. Part of his duties included getting payola to then President Fulgencio Batista. Stacher also allegedly had a hand in ensuring the success of Lansky’s casinos in Haiti and the Bahamas.

“Ultimately, he would become one of Lansky’s most valuable aides in the control of international casino gambling,” wrote Hank Messick in the biography Lansky.

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* Stacher also went by these names: Joseph Rosen, Morris Rose, Morris Rosen, Doc Rosen, Joe J. Stein, J.P. Harris, Doc Harris, Doc Weiner, George Kent and Harry Goldman.

Sources

From left to right, Mert, Lou and Al Wertheimer

1907-1958

Wertheimer was their name. Three of these four Michigan-born brothers became full-fledged, successful gambling operators in the first half of the 1900s, their reach spanning five states: Michigan, Ohio, Florida, California and Nevada.

“As gamblers, Al, Mert and Lou became almost as well-known Detroiters as the automobile pioneers. However, the only thing the Wertheimers built was their reputation as being fabulous spenders and operators of plus gambling establishments here and in other cities,” wrote Ken McCormick in the Detroit Free Press (June 9, 1953).

The brothers, from eldest to youngest, and their birthdates were:

Myrton “Mert”                    June 12, 1884
Louis “Lou”                        September 19, 1887
Alfred “Al” John                January 30, 1889
Lionel Abraham                 May 30, 1890 (he wasn’t involved in gambling)

Today, Mert’s 136th birthday, we take a chronological look at most (20) of the threesome’s gambling enterprises over five decades.

1900-1910s

The Wertheimers began their careers with offering illegal gambling in Cheboygan, their hometown, using billiards/pool halls as their front.

In 1907, Al and Lou opened and operated the New Cheboygan Billiard & Pool Hall, renaming it the Model Billiard & Bowling Parlor a year later. After a 1911 fire there, Al moved to Detroit; Mert went, too, in 1915. Lou stayed put until 1925.

1920s

Mert and Al spent this decade plying their unlawful trade at various venues, mostly in Detroit. Later in the decade, though, Lou and Al opened a club in Cleveland, Ohio. Because police raids of their unlawful businesses were frequent, the gamblers simply packed up and opened elsewhere.

Grand River Athletic Club, Detroit, Mich. Mert and Al opened this bowling, billiards/pool and gambling club in 1922.

Monte Carlo, Detroit, Mich. Mert ran this club of his from 1922 to 1927.

Colonial Billiard Parlor, Detroit, Mich. Mert and his friend, Raymond Reuben “Ruby” Mathis, opened the Colonial in 1923.

Park Avenue Health Club, Detroit, Mich. One of Al’s gambling enterprises, run out of the Charlevoix Hotel starting in 1923.

Shawnee Club, Cleveland, Ohio. Al and Lou launched the Shawnee in 1925 with the county sheriff’s blessing despite gambling being illegal in the state. A public official closed the club in 1931.

Aniwa Club, Detroit, Mich. Al’s project starting in 1929, this was the Wertheimers’ first high-class nightclub, offering fine dining, dancing and entertainment. After numerous raids for alcohol and gambling, both illegal, he changed the club to members only.

Chesterfield Club, Detroit, Mich. Mert partnered and co-ran the club with Detroit gamblers Lincoln Fitzgerald and Danny Sullivan. The trio operated as the Chesterfield Syndicate with Mert in charge and Fitzgerald second in command. Consequently, that trio would be convicted in 1946 of illegal gambling there, in Macomb County.

The syndicate operated with the permission of the Purple Gang, which controlled the Chesterfield and other gambling operations. Another set of brothers, the Bernsteins — Abraham/”Abe,” Joseph/”Joe”, Raymond and Isadore/”Izzy” — led this violent group, also involved in bootlegging, murder, extortion, armed robbery and kidnapping.

Colonial Billiard Parlor

Aniwa Club

1930s

During this decade, Mert moved to South Florida, and Al and Lou relocated to Southern California. Then, casino gambling in Florida was illegal as were banking* and percentage** games in California.

Beach and Tennis Club, Miami, Fla. For the upper class, Mert opened this place in 1931 in The Shadows mansion formerly of Carl G. Fisher. It offered dining, dancing, illegal gambling and illegal alcohol, no tennis.

Clover Club, West Hollywood, Calif. Al and Lou’s first gaming establishment in California, they ran it from 1933 to 1936.

Dunes, Cathedral City, Calif. Al and Lou opened it in 1936 on 20 acres just outside Palm Springs. Al closed it in 1941.

Colonial House, Palm Springs, Calif. Al aimed to capture the elite as customers with its 1937 debut. “This one masqueraded as a ‘private hotel,’ but just about everyone in town knew there was a secret staircase hidden behind a cupboard in the pantry that led to an underground casino, bar and bawdy house,” Bob Schulman wrote in the HuffPost (May 15, 2013).

Royal Palm Club, Miami, Fla. Miami city councilman Arthur Childers owned the club, and Mert operated its gambling starting in 1937.

Kaufman’s Plantation, Hallandale Beach, Fla. Mobsters Vincent “Jimmy Blue Eyes” Alo, Julian “Potatoes” Kaufman and Meyer Lansky owned the casino, which Mert helped run beginning in 1939.

Beach and Tennis Club

Dunes

Royal Palm Hotel

1940s

This decade took Mert and Lou to Reno, Nevada, where gambling had been legal since 1931, while Al remained in California.

Bonanza Club, Reno, Nev. Lou bought into the business in 1944 and ran it until the Mapes’ 1947 debut.

Colonial Inn, Hallandale Beach, Fla. Mert was involved with this Lansky-owned property only for the 1945 winter season.

Robbin & Robbin / Nevada Club, Reno, Nev. Around 1945, Mert, Fitzgerald, Sullivan and Mathis wormed their way into and took over Robbin & Robbin, renaming it the Nevada Club afterward.

Mapes, Reno, Nev. Lou and partners, Bernard “Bernie/Mooney” Einstoss, Frank Grannis and Leo Kind, leased and ran this hotel’s casino starting in 1947.

Mapes and Riverside hotels

1950s

This decade marked the end of the Wertheimer brothers’ gambling involvement and their lives.

Riverside, Reno, Nev. Mert took over the lease and operation of this hotel’s gambling concession in 1950. In 1951, Lou joined Mert at the Riverside and worked alongside him for a few years.

Al passed away in 1953 at age 64.

In 1955, Mert, Mathis and others bought the entire Riverside property from George Wingfield. In 1958, Lou died at 70 then Mert followed two months later at 74.

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*Banking games = those in which bets are placed against a house, bank or dealer

**Percentage games = banking games with relatively disproportionate odds

Sources