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

1894-Today

In his paintings depicting dogs as humans, Cassius “Kash” Marcellus Coolidge (1844-1934) brilliantly captured the nuances of poker playing and gambling. The dogs’ expressions are spot on and the details, comedic. Perhaps Coolidge himself had some experience in that world.

Along with Poker Game (above), here are the paintings, all oils on canvas, created between 1894 and 1910:

In A Bold Bluff, originally titled Judge St. Bernard Stands Pat on Nothing, it appears as if Judge St. Bernard has bluffed his way through the game with a weak hand and, with only one opponent left, all eyes are on Judge, eager to see his next move or his hand.

Waterloo continues the story, with Judge St. Bernard having won the game and the big pot, his fellow players shocked at his hand and how he’d bluffed them.

Looks Like Four of a Kind, also called A Friend in Need, shows a group of buddies playing poker at 1:10 a.m. Mr. Bulldog is about to cheat by slyly giving a card to his compatriot on his left. Mr. Dog on Mr. Bulldog’s right witnesses the pass. (Note how Mr. Collie has his legs crossed!)

In His Station and Four Aces, three dogs are playing poker while traveling on a train, and a few others, the attendant included, are watching. Mr. Dog seated on the left has a rare hand (four aces) but before he can play it, the train arrives at his stop, and he’s grumbling about it.

Pinched with Four Aces depicts a police raid on an in-progress, illegal poker game. Mr. Collie No. 1 starts to flee, knocking over his liquor glass and sending his chips flying in the process. Mr. Collie No. 2 looks angrily at the cops for the intrusion whereas the other players just seem surprised by it. Mr. Bulldog has four aces, but his hand will go to waste.

In Poker Sympathy, Mr. Bulldog hasn’t won anything all night and looks to be saying, “I freakin’ give up!” The other players express their sympathy except for Mr. Pitbull, who seems to be laughing at the repeat loser’s misfortune.

In Post Mortem, at about 1:23 a.m., three players are enjoying a snack while kibbitzing and discussing and analyzing the games just played that night.  

Sitting Up With a Friend shows a group of guys keeping their ailing pal company. Some are trying to entertain him, at least one other is playing cards with him, and a third and fourth are passing the time reading.

Stranger in Camp depicts a mining camp, in which two card-playing men are unhappy with an unknown dude who wandered over to join them. One seems to be sizing him up, the other looks to be yelling at him. Meanwhile, the newcomer looks a tad frightened.

Unwarranted Dissing Of The Artist

The art community of Coolidge’s time didn’t give the New York-born any respect, as if they believed he and his works were inferior, products for the lower classes. Ironically, it’s those very elitists whom Coolidge seems to mock in his paintings of anthropomorphized dogs, wearing suits, ties and pricey accessories, smoking pipes and cigars, drinking expensive liquor and gambling away heaps of money.

Given that Coolidge’s images are still being reproduced and hold iconic status today, more than 100 years after their creation, and given two of the original paintings sold at auction in 2005 for $590,400 (about $829,000 today), Coolidge, god rest his soul, (deservedly) is having the last laugh. Not bad for someone without any formal training in the arts.

An older and a younger Cassius Marcellus Coolidge

Which one is your favorite painting? 

X-ray showing a Kepplinger Holdout on the body

1888

It was the “very finest … the world has ever seen … a masterpiece,” wrote John Nevil Maskelyne in his 1894 book, Sharps and Flats: A Complete Revelation of the Secrets of Cheating at Games of Chance and Skill.

It was the “most complicated, ingenious and successful contraption in the history of crooked gambling,” someone in the know said more recently, in the 20th century. He was Frank Garcia, or the “The Gambling Investigator,” who nationally exposed and demonstrated ways to cheat at gambling.

It was the Kepplinger Holdout, which came on the scene in 1888 in San Francisco, California. A holdout is a mechanical device that allows a person to “hold out,” or conceal, one or more cards, until the card player (or magician) wants to use one for a game advantage (or trick).

Jacob’s Ladder, closed and open; Cuff Holdout, a marking its opening

How It Compared

The Kepplinger, interchangeably called the San Francisco, was superior to previous holdouts for two critical reasons.

One, it worked flawlessly, without the typical problems of its predecessors, such as cards getting hung up in the cuff and string getting tangled in a pulley wheel.

Two, it “operated imperceptibly and invisibly,” G.R. Williamson wrote in Frontier Gambling. Users didn’t make any noticeable body movements when employing it, like pressing a forearm against the table, required with the Jacob’s Ladder or crossing one’s hands, which activated the cuff-pocket holdout. The Kepplinger was used with a special shirt, one with double shirtsleeves and cuffs, so that if someone peered up the user’s sleeve, they wouldn’t see anything.

Original, Impeccable Design

The Kepplinger Holdout consisted of wheels, tubes, strings, pulleys and other parts, all of which were connected and ran from the user’s knees to shoulders and down to a wrist, under their clothes. “The centerpiece was a metal slide attached to a rod, which retracted into a pair of steel jaws,” Williamson highlighted. The double shirtsleeves hid this assembly.

“The design was brilliant,” he added.

To activate the Kepplinger, in other words to secret away or return cards to one’s palm, the user spread their knees. This action, in the case of the former, caused the device’s steel jaws to open and the slide to extend. The user then inserted the card or cards into the cuff, and the jaws, securely holding them, closed — all undetectable by others. Click here for a video demonstration of how it worked.

Key parts of the Kepplinger Holdout

No. 1: Spring catch forced down into the hand to take away or deliver a card.

No. 2: Machine and, behind it, false sleeve as it rests on the arm when not in use.

No. 3: Arm part of machine and false sleeve, with the spring catch extended for use.

No. 4: Ingenious joint that allows the tubing to fit itself to motion of the body in all directions.

No. 5: Slide view of spring catch and holder showing double receptacle for taking away and delivering a card with one movement. The long tongue keeps the cards apart.

Man Behind The Machine

The Kepplinger Holdout was named eponymously after its inventor, P.J. Kepplinger, known in high-class Frisco gambling circles.

“[He] was a professional gambler; that is, he was. In other words, he was a sharp — and of the sharpest,” Maskelyne noted.

After creating the device, Kepplinger tested it for months in poker games with the other local card sharps. It proved infallible, as he won continuously and, thus, earned the nickname, “The Lucky Dutchman.” His opponents suspected he was cheating, though, but after ruling out all of the known methods, they couldn’t figure out how.

That is, until one day they cornered him and searched his person. Kepplinger reportedly put up a valiant fight but soon was overpowered. They discovered the machine.

Those men, whose money Kepplinger repeatedly pilfered deviously, didn’t want to hurt or even kill Kepplinger for his having cheated them. Rather, each wanted the device for himself!

The inventor’s secret was out. That meant a new revenue source for him but the end of an income that personal use of his innovation guaranteed him.

“The new holdout became common property of card sharps everywhere,” Williamson wrote. “By the 1890s, gambling supply companies were selling Kepplinger or San Francisco holdouts for $100 apiece” (at least $2,500 today). In 1930, the device still was being used; 21 player, Francis Leo Luckett, for one, capitalized on it in Reno, Nevada gambling saloons that year. 

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X-ray image from A&E Networks’ History channel

Diagram from Washington D.C.’s Morning Times, May 17, 1896

Sources

1968, 1969

Bally Manufacturing Corp. got its name from Ballyhoo, the first coin-operated pinball machine (a penny got you seven plays) created in 1931 by Raymond Moloney, owner of Chicago, Illinois-based Lion Manufacturing Co. Lion became Bally in January 1932.

The company also made slot machines, video poker machines, video games and state lottery games and at its peak, owned five casino properties. 

In 1969, the British rock group, The Who, gave a shout out to Bally in its song, “Pinball Wizard,” lyrics by Pete Townshend:

I thought I was
The Bally table king
But I just handed
My pin ball crown to him

Even on my favorite table
He can beat my best
His disciples lead him in
And he just does the rest
He’s got crazy flipper fingrs
Never seen him fall
That deaf dumb and blind kind
Sure plays a mean pin ball!

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).

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).

Commemorative bronze statue of Binion in Las Vegas, Nevada

Today

Although Texas-born Lester B. “Benny” Binion (1904-1989) no longer is with us, he remains a legend among Las Vegas casino owners and operators — gamblers, in industry parlance.

Iconic even in his appearance — large in girth and ever clad in a cowboy hat and boots — Binion was complex. The dichotomous traits he embodied likely helped him attain success; he was charming yet cruel, a family man yet a criminal, and minimally educated (through the second grade) yet savvy in business.

“For those who understood the real game being played in Las Vegas and America, Benny was one of the most influential, and feared, men of his time; and in that enormous power, if not in his crude style, he set an example,” wrote Sally Denton and Roger Morris in The Money and The Power: The Making of Las Vegas and Its Hold on America.

Binion is remembered for owning and operating the Horseshoe Club in Southern Nevada and allowing players to place high-stakes bets on craps at a time when other gambling houses wouldn’t. He also launched the famed World Series of Poker tournament in 1970.

Down And Dirty Details

That’s the part of his story that prevails. Here are 10 lesser-known facts about Benny Binion:

1) He was an FBI informant for a time, providing the governmental agency with the inside scoop about various Las Vegas gamblers and their enterprises.

2) He murdered at least two men — Frank Bolding, a man whom he suspected of stealing liquor from him during his bootlegging days, and Ben Frieden, a competitor in the policy racket in Dallas, the latter slaying earning him the nickname “The Cowboy.” He wasn’t ever charged for the killings. Despite admitting both to Nevada gaming regulators, they granted him a gambling license.

3) His gambling start was running a lucrative numbers operation in Texas.

4) He couldn’t read, write or do basic math.

5) His father was a drunk and excessive gambler, and his brother, Jack, died in a plane crash at age 23.

6) He was openly racist toward African Americans.

7) He secretly brokered the funneling of millions of dollars from prominent Dallas bankers to Las Vegas mobsters and took a 5 percent cut for his services. One such transaction was $500,000 (about $5.1 million today) that Republic Bank provided to Moe Dalitz, the Cleveland mob’s representative in Sin City, for construction of the Desert Inn hotel-casino.

8) Following a drawn out extradition battle and legal wrangling that went to the U.S. Supreme Court, he served 3.25 years, from Dec. 1953 to March 1957, in the U.S. Penitentiary Leavenworth in Kansas on federal charges of tax evasion and state charges of illegal gambling,

9) After his release from prison, he sold the remaining, non-mob-owned interest of the Horseshoe to mobster Meyer Lansky and associates through their front man, Ed Levinson, because Binion needed money to pay past taxes (eventually, he bought back 100 percent of the casino).

10) He applied for a presidential pardon five times but wasn’t granted one.

Sources

1931

Twenty-six miles southeast of Las Vegas, the United States government, in 1931, developed Boulder City as the place to house men working on the Hoover Dam (originally Boulder Dam). The Bureau of Reclamation required the town to be a model community that afforded a clean living environment.

To achieve this, federal legislators officially designated 12 square miles around Boulder City as a federal reservation. This allowed it to prevent gambling, drinking and prostitution near the job site, as federal officers would have jurisdiction and could control the area.

However, that same year, Nevada legalized gambling. In July, a Los Angeleno, F.J. Warren, procured a gambling license, one of the first granted in the state, for a 6,000-square-foot casino and dance hall. He named it the Railroad Pass Club after the segment of rail that connected Union Pacific’s main tracks to those near the dam.

It was to be built roughly five miles from Boulder City, and that area fell into the exclusive U.S. zone. Despite the geographical conflict, construction began on Warren’s enterprise the following month.

It turns out, the location of Warren’s entertainment destination was a 20-acre strip of land for which someone, O.D. Johnson, already had a patent. The federal government couldn’t incorporate in its reservation any acreage of that kind without an act of Congress.

In the end, it didn’t pursue legislation to seize that land, thereby blocking the casino and eliminating that source of temptation for Boulder City residents.

Plan Comes To Fruition

On August 1, the manager, O.T. Buck, opened the Railroad Pass Club, which boasted slot machines, 21/blackjack, craps, roulette, bingo and poker. With gambling, alcohol, food and dancing, it drew dam workers and their families.

“Two of the more notorious [‘resorts’] were the Railroad Pass Club and Texas Acres,” Wm. Joe Simonds wrote in “The Boulder Canyon Project.” “These clubs, surrounded by tents and cabins where prostitutes plied their trade, had vicious reputations, and beatings, knifings and shootings were common.

“When the night was over and the last dollar spent, carloads of drunken workers would race back to Boulder City trying to beat the clock and return before the start of the day shift. Because of the many accidents on the road between Boulder City and Las Vegas, the highway became known as the Widowmaker.”

To gain entry into the facility, guests had to know and provide the password, which was “gaiety.”  Advertising materials highlighted that the temperature inside was a balmy 70 degrees. Electric fans and damp sheets hung from the ceiling cooled the building.

Now In 2017

Eighty-five years later, after changes in ownership and some building remodels, the business still exists, in the same location, what today is the City of Henderson’s southeast corner, at 2800 S. Boulder Highway. The name — Railroad Pass Hotel & Casino — still reflects its connections to the past. Guests can discover just what those are, in the on-site museum, the Heritage Room.

Sources

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

1939

A Fred Martens, or “Fritz the Rooster,” sat at a table in a Las Vegas gambling house playing poker with some men. After a streak of bad luck, he seemed headed for a possible straight.

Suddenly, though, he suffered a heart attack and died, right in the chair.

One of his opponents yelled to the owner, “Call a doc,” and the game proceeded; several pots were won and lost.

Only one interruption in the gambling occurred when, on the physician’s arrival, the table had to be shifted to remove the corpse.

Happy Halloween!

Photo from pond5.com: “Symbol of Death in Poker Hand” by oiasson