1949

Casino owners balked when the question of going on daylight saving time (DST) arose in Nevada in 1949.

Gamblers’ Outcries

Charles Mapes, owner of the Mapes hotel-casino in Reno, made a few arguments:

• “It’s difficult to put on a floor show at 9 p.m. with the sun just going down. A spotlight can’t compete with the sun when it comes to showing an attractive star to best advantage. It cuts the glamour. She should be in a bathing suit at that time of the day.”

• Extended daylight reduced night life.

• It caused restaurant patrons to alter their eating habits and all crowd the restaurant at the same time, creating problems.

• It confused out-of-town guests about hotel checkout time.

Raymond “Pappy” I. Smith, co-owner of Harolds Club, also in Reno, cited loss of business, saying casino owners would “lose their shirts unless the clocks stay put” (Nevada State Journal, May 6, 1949) and were united in this opinion.

He said his casino had lost $1,000 ($10,000 today) per night the previous year due to DST, which had been effected due to a power shortage. This year, his business couldn’t withstand such a hit as revenue had decreased 56 percent. He pointed out that another club was $70,000 in debt ($707,500 today), primarily due to the influx of California visitors having plummeted the summer before.

Playing Hot Potato

By Nevada law (as of 1946), only the governor had the authority to call or not call for daylight saving time each year. Yet in 1949, Governor Vail Pittman left the choice to each of the 13 counties because “the heads of the local county and city governments are in a better position to know the needs and desires of their people in matters of this nature than is the governor,” he said (Reno Evening Gazette, May 2, 1949).

Immediately, in April, counties began deciding. White Pine County opted to begin DST on April 17. Elko County followed suit, choosing a May 1 start date. Nye and Esmeralda Counties planned to spring forward on May 15. Likewise, based on a slew of requests for it, Washoe County tentatively agreed to DST effective May 15 pending formal approval.

When the Washoe County commissioners next met, DST opponents, including the casino heads, made their cases against a time change. Then District Attorney Harold Taber informed the governing body that, after conferring with state Attorney General Alan Bible, the two had concluded the counties lack the power to proclaim DST legally.

Consequently, Washoe County reversed its stance and tossed the issue back to Pittman. Ormsby County (now Carson City) did the same, accusing him of “passing the buck” (Nevada State Journal, May 3, 1949).

Time Change Fallout

Pittman’s final word was he wouldn’t proclaim DST on a statewide basis. This left 4 counties with their clocks already set ahead or about to be and the remaining 13 counties on standard time.

“It was presumed that the counties can remain on daylight time as long as they want to — although such action by commissioners is not legal technically,” noted the Nevada State Journal (May 10, 1949). “In other words, as long as nobody raises the point legally, any county can adopt daylight time — or any other time system — it wants if its residents are satisfied.”

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Illustration from pond5: “Antique Clock Face” by StellaL 

Cactus Pete’s casino in Jackpot, Nevada in 1960

1960

When one rural Nevada town grew into a gambling hot spot in the mid-1900s, the gamblers in another loudly grumbled.

Soon after Idaho outlawed slot machines, its last vestige of legal gambling, the sagebrush- and broomgrass-covered land 47 miles south of Twin Falls, just across the border, began to evolve into a small community — Jackpot. It grew to consist of about 125 trailers (no houses), two motels, a grocery store and a beauty shop.

Development started in 1954 with the debut of the Horshu Club. The 93, Cactus Pete’s, Tex’s Gateway and Diamond Jim’s then followed. Together, these casinos offered 320 slot machines, four pits of 21, roulette and dice tables, keno and wheels of fortune along with free meals and stage entertainment.

By 1960, the town’s five gambling houses drew thousands of players per year,* many from nearby Idaho Falls. To capitalize on that city’s pool of players, Jackpot’s gamblers provided free nightly, round-trip transportation by bus.

Gamblers Protest About, Well, Other Gamblers

Rival casino owners in Elko, which officially became a city in 1917, claimed the Jackpot clubs were exploiting Twin Falls’ economy. They predicted law enforcement and public service problems would arise in Jackpot and warned the end result would be Twin Falls business owners lobbying for a federal gambling ban.

“Frankly, the Elko gamblers don’t like the competition — they are 115 miles farther from the Idaho line,” wrote the Oakland Tribune (Nov. 13, 1960).

The state’s gaming regulators noted the complaints and thought they might be valid in part. They wondered if casinos in the rural border regions might harm the industry overall, particularly because those places were difficult for them to oversee and because of the payoff scandal involving a gambling watchdog in the rural town of Wells that had occurred earlier in the decade.

The Nevada Gaming Control Board launched an investigation, and in November 1960, conducted a survey of Twin Falls residents about their attitude toward gambling in Jackpot. It revealed that 18 percent favored it, 30 percent opposed it and 53 percent were neutral.

Were Nevada’s gaming agencies to forbid gambling in Jackpot, it would set a dangerous precedent, said the attorney for the community, Leo Puccinelli.

“Nevada gambling was built by competition and it will be in trouble if the established clubs can win monopolies with legislation,” he added. “After all, the major part of Nevada gambling is on a border basis. Only Elko is in central Nevada, while Reno and Lake Tahoe cater to Northern California and Las Vegas to Southern California” (Oakland Tribune, Sept. 16, 1960).

Jackpot’s gamblers remained mum on the issue, hoping it would go away … which eventually it did, leaving them to continue running their casinos without impediment by the state.

*Total gaming revenue from Elko County, including Elko and Jackpot, then was between $4 and $5 million ($32.5 and $40.7 million today) per year.

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Downtown Las Vegas, 1950s

1951-1954

In October 1951, Southern California resident, Wayne H. Teipel, responded to a “For Sale” ad in the Los Angeles Examiner for a slot machine, pinball game and phonograph route business in Las Vegas, Nevada. The income touted was $1,000 a week (about $9,600 today) and the price, $28,500 ($276,000).

Ray Wherrit of San Luis Obispo, on California’s Central Coast, was selling the enterprise, Southern Nevada Vending Company, six months after he’d gotten a gambling license to run it.

Numbers Check

Teipel learned from the broker the business netted about $300 ($2,900) a week. A memo signed by Wherrit and shown to the prospective buyer noted weekly gross income between $850 and $1,250 ($8,200 and $12,000).

This difference between gross and net indicated weekly expenses were $550 to $950 ($5,300 to $9,100), much of that being city, county and federal taxes paid on the machines.

Teipel put down a $1,500 ($14,500) refundable deposit, buying himself time to investigate the business.

He reviewed its various financial documents, including bank deposits, which, for July through September, showed weekly income of less than $1,000 ($9,600). He pored over the ledgers, which detailed the money collected from every customer on the route along with the taxes due and paid since day one. Teipel and the broker visited several of the client locations.

Lock, Stock And Barrel

Teipel purchased the route on October 23, including the equipment, customers and goodwill, and wrote a check for $13,682 ($132,000). He was to pay off the $10,383 ($100,000) balance in monthly installments of $433 ($4,200).

The two parties signed the appropriate sale documents, including a noncompete agreement indicating Wherrit wouldn’t participate in a similar business within a 50-mile radius of Las Vegas for five years.

Wherrit provided a week’s worth of hands-on assistance in transitioning the business to Teipel. During that time, buyer and seller drove the route together and compiled an inventory and a list of the required taxes for each location. 

Change Of Mind

After another week, the United States Congress doubled the yearly federal tax on individual slot and pinball machines, to $250 from $150 (to $2,400 from $1,400). Teipel telephoned and complained to the broker about the tax increase and the less-than-expected amount of money the route was generating. 

On November 5, Teipel abandoned the business and returned to Los Angeles. Ten days later, his attorney served Wherrit with a notice of rescission, which undoes or terminates a contract on the basis of fraud. A contract rescission requires that all parties be restored to their pre-deal states, which includes returning any benefits received while the contract was in force.

End Of The Road

The case went to trial. Teipel, the plaintiff, claimed that when Wherrit had run Southern Nevada Vending, he’d recorded the dollar amounts collected incorrectly and had misrepresented the business and income to him intentionally.

As for the machines and the route, Teipel reported he didn’t know what had come of them and couldn’t reproduce any of the equipment.

The court found that Teipel had acquired the business “only after a full and complete investigation and that there had been no fraud,” according to a case summary. Therefore, Wherrit wasn’t mandated to sign and honor the rescission contract or return to Teipel the sale proceeds.

Teipel appealed, without success. In 1954, the Court of Appeals of California heard the case and concurred with the original ruling.

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