“Clint Stone” — Who am I really? / Photo by Geno Munari

In the autobiographical book, Cheater, the author Clint Stone (most likely an alias), paints himself as a lifelong gambling cheat. His specialty is mucking, using sleight of hand, one hand in his case, to introduce a card into play while removing another. A self-proclaimed crossroader, he’d plied his craft around the world.

“I was a cheater. A predator. Casinos my prey. I was hunter and hunted,” Stone described.

The book covers a brief period in midlife for Stone, in the early 1990s, following his release from federal prison, where he served five years “because I wouldn’t drop a dime,” he wrote. Once out, he makes Las Vegas his home and plans the ultimate casino heist of his decades-long career. In the meantime, he and various associates pull off various cheats, of gambling houses and high rollers. All are fully detailed, from prep to conclusion.

The book is fascinating and a fun read, but is it true? It Really Happened! investigated, and here’s what we learned.

The Real Deal

Las Vegas businessman, Geno Munari, watched Stone demonstrate his card skills, when the two met to discuss Munari possibly publishing Cheater. Munari subsequently published the book on Amazon.

Stone’s performance impressed Munari, a former dealer and magician well-trained and -experienced in detecting card cheats.  

“His one hand muck for blackjack, making a total of 12 into a total of 20 or even a blackjack (ace and a 10 valued card) is undetectable,” Munari wrote in Cheaters‘ introduction.

Munari videotaped Stone in action. Watch it here and decide for yourselves. DB: Find the video.

Down To The Nitty-Gritty

Many of the specific places and dates in the book aren’t accurate. For instance, Stone mentions a significant life event involving the Humboldt Hotel in Winnemucca at a certain point in time, which can’t be true as it had burned down prior and hadn’t been rebuilt. He didn’t use people’s real names either.

Perhaps Stone changed these details to keep himself and his accomplices from being identified or worse. This is understandable, but if so, perhaps he should’ve informed readers this is the case.

***SPOILER ALERT*** More significantly, the book climaxes with Stone and crew taking a casino for a multimillion slot machine jackpot. Did that really happen?

It may have!

Similar Jackpot Win

In Cheater, Stone describes his target as a $25 million jackpot slot machine in an unnamed casino on the Las Vegas Strip.

“I wanted that jackpot,” he wrote. “My desire to take off a multimillion dollar slot machine score was a slice of my reality. That same desire was also part of my non-reality, which would remain an undeveloped, negative image until I beat the machine.”

Stone claims to have rigged the slot to pay off and prearranged for an African American surgical nurse from Los Angeles to come forward and collect the money. He alludes to carrying out the theft in 1993.

In that year, though, the amount of Nevada’s slot jackpots was nowhere near that large. They didn’t reach $25 million until 2003, when a player won a $39.7 million jackpot at the Excalibur Casino in Las Vegas.

In 1992, as reported in local newspapers, an African American surgical nurse from Sacramento, named Delores Adams, landed a $9.3 million progressive Megabucks slot jackpot, a huge and all-time record amount in The Silver State at the time. For the win, she reportedly lined up four symbols on a $1 slot machine in Harrah’s Reno Hotel and Casino in Northern Nevada.

The similarities between the newspapers and Stone’s accounts suggest this event involving Adams is the one he describes in Cheater. They don’t, however, confirm the win actually was a heist.

If this was the career-topping cheat Stone asserts it was, why did he embellish the dollar amount?

Sources

Wyatt Earp, age 21

Iconic American figure, Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp (1848-1929), is heralded for his courageous exploits as a lawman, but he was a gambler first and foremost, often relying on the then-respectable profession to earn income throughout his lifetime. He’s earned a spot in U.S. gambling history.

Earp’s Gambling Education And Practice

At age 20, the tall, slender native Illinoisan landed a job in Wyoming grading track for construction of the Union Pacific Railroad. During time spent at the railhead, Earp learned how to play and deal faro and run monte. Over the next several years, he honed the craft in various gambling houses, saloons and brothels of the frontier and became proficient. Eventually, he operated table games, too.

As a gambler, Earp reportedly was honest and garnered high repute wherever he went, and he traveled a lot.

“Earp rarely stayed in the same place for long, frequently becoming broke, bored, unwelcome or some combination of the three,” wrote John Caldbick in a History Link essay.

The nomad typically moved from boomtown to boomtown, and in every one he hustled as a faro banker. He did own some brick-and-mortar gambling establishments, too. Here are some of them:

It Was Westward Ho For Lawman

After a roughly decade-long stint as a law enforcement officer, most recently as a deputy U.S. marshal, Earp relocated to San Diego, California in the mid-1880s.

“There was another Wyatt Earp seldom remembered — an older, wiser gentleman who lived in San Diego and operated gambling halls; bought and sold urban property; refereed [bull and cock] fights and owned racehorses,” reported the San Diego Union (Oct. 17, 1978).

During his roughly decade of living off and on in America’s Finest City, Earp leased and operated four gambling saloons there, all four simultaneously at one point, reportedly. All of them were in the red light Stingaree district that teemed with con men, shifty gamblers and criminals.

They offered faro, monte, blackjack, poker, keno, pedro, monte and other games. Not much else is known about Earp’s gambling enterprises there except for their locations and that they were profitable, particularly during the city’s boom years, 1885 to 1888, during which the gambler could net as much as $1,000 a night.

His most famous and most popular gambling spot was the Oyster Bar, in the Louis Bank Building at 835 Fifth Avenue. The others were at:

• A corner of 6th and F streets (where he ran high stakes faro)
• The northeast corner of 6th and G streets
• 951 4th Street

On Sundays, Earp promoted and ran all types of gambling, including the big wheel, rouge et noir, faro, monte and even thimblerig in Tijuana, Mexico.

Businessman Strikes Gold With New Saloon

After the rush to Nome, Alaska Territory for gold began in 1899, Wyatt moved there. He and partner Charlie Hoxie built and operated the luxurious Dexter Saloon, the town’s hotspot for travelers, miners and locals to drink, gamble, discuss politics and do business. The establishment was hugely successful thanks, in large part, to Earp’s notoriety.

Dexter Saloon

Gamblers Disgruntled by Big Name Newcomer

While still a co-owner of The Dexter, in 1899, Earp debuted another gambling house: The Union Club. That one was in Seattle, Washington’s tenderloin and was a partnership with a local man, Thomas Urquhart.

The move was risky because The Emerald City prohibited gambling and the men running places offering games of chance regularly paid off the local officials to let them operate. Those gamblers were displeased with the famous lawman moving in on their territory and then, with the Union’s immediate success, having to compete with him.

Law enforcement erratically enforced Seattle’s anti-gambling ordinance and this created ongoing trouble for the Union’s co-proprietors. Consequently, within six months of opening, Earp pulled out of the joint venture.

Nomad Stakes Out Mining Camp

Earp sold his share of the Dexter to Hoxie and headed to Nevada, Tonopah specifically. There, in 1902, he opened the The Northern with partner Al Martin and ran a successful business. 

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Know anything more about Earp’s gambling career? Let us know about it, please.

Sources

1939

With the recent discoveries of dead bodies there, Lake Mead in Southern Nevada has been in the news.

The 1.5 million acres encompassing this water body and its environs have been a designated national recreation area since 1964, but a portion of them almost had become a Nevada state park three decades earlier.

The federal government quashed the effort to establish such an entity due to gambling, in part.

Piece Of The Pie

Nevada Senator Key D. Pittman introduced a bill to the U.S. Congress in early 1939 that would carve out about 10,000 acres (or 12 square miles out of 2,600) of publicly owned lands on the Boulder Dam National Recreation Area and authorize The Silver State to use them for a park.*

The recreation area, about 18 miles from Las Vegas, included the lake that Hoover Dam (previously called Boulder Dam) created, Lake Mead, named after Elwood Mead, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation commissioner at the time.

The National Park Service had gained responsibility for Lake Mead and the surrounding land in October 1936. About 10 years later, the name was changed to the Lake Mead National Recreation Area. The attraction drew about 500,000 or more visitors each year.

All About Gambling

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes attacked Pittman’s state park idea, purporting that gambling and liquor interests were behind it. He argued that the 160 acres, allocated in the bill for the state park or “other public purposes,” likely would be used for saloons and gambling houses.

To support these claims, he alleged that, according to circulating rumors, gamblers being driven out of Los Angeles in a citywide cleanup intended to open shop in the Lake Mead area to capitalize on the numerous tourists visiting the lake and dam.

“I believe that the people of the United States want the integrity of their national park areas preserved,” Ickes said (Reno Evening Gazette, March 7, 1939).

Guy McAfee

Ickes didn’t name anyone but was referring to Guy McAfee, according to Charles “C.D.” Baker, president of the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce. McAfee was a former Los Angeles Police Department officer and gambler who’d moved from the City of Angels to Las Vegas due to heat from law enforcement in the former in 1938. The next year he’d acquired and renamed the Pair O’ Dice Club, on Highway 91 between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, the 91 Club. Also, he’d debuted the Frontier Club in downtown Sin City. Baker refuted Ickes’ claims about gamblers, emphasizing McAfee had nothing to do with the proposed state park.

“That is a cooked-up charge to cloud the issues,” Baker said, referring specifically to Ickes’ assertion that Nevada wanted the state park so gambling establishments could be operated and liquor sold at it (Reno Evening Gazette, March 8, 1939).

Baker conceded, however, that Las Vegas wanted the state park so that Nevada, instead of the federal government, could control and benefit economically from the non-gambling/non-alcohol concessions there.

Ickes contended, too, that were Pittman’s bill to become law, it would set an unwise precedent and encourage other states to demand parcels of national parks.

Attempts To Appease

In response to Ickes’ opposition, Pittman expressed his belief that “western lands are rapidly becoming a barony, of the dictator at the head of the Department of the Interior,” but the senator also took steps to resolve the concerns.

He amended his bill. The new verbiage indicated Nevada would forfeit the federal grant for a state park if it “fails to put into effect and practice in said area laws, rules and regulations put into effect and practiced by the Department of the Interior within the Boulder canyon reclamation area relative to gambling, sale of intoxicating liquors, water pollution or sanitation” (Reno Evening Gazette, March 7, 1939).

Pittman also encouraged the Nevada State Park Commission (NSPC) to ban gambling and liquor sales in Nevada parks, which the agency did.

State Support

While Pittman worked in Washington, D.C. on the state park idea, Nevada legislators did so on the home front. They passed Senate Bill (SB) 133, which authorized the governor to accept a grant of land for a state park at Boulder Dam. They also approved SB 132, which authorized the NSPC to prohibit gaming and alcohol sales in the potential state park at Lake Mead.

The Finale

The fate of Pittman’s bill became known in August, when U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt vetoed it. His reasons for doing so echoed Ickes’ voiced criticisms of the Nevada state park prospect except those related to gambling and liquor.

“I firmly believe the Boulder Dam/Lake Mead region in its entirety should continue to be administered uniformly by federal government in the interest of the nation as a whole,” Roosevelt said (Nevada State Journal, Aug. 13, 1939). He added that the area warranted consideration as a national park or monument site. (About 25 years later, the federal government officially made it a national recreation area.)

Angry at the decision by Roosevelt, specifically that he’d based it on Ickes’ input, as reported by the press, Pittman issued a statement. In it, he suggested the U.S. president might lose support in western states due to his public land policy.

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* At the time, Nevada had four state parks, including the Valley of Fire, all of which the legislature had established in 1935.

Photo by Tony Webster

Sources

Street photo of 2nd Street Reno in 1950, with Club Cal-Neva

In a likely unprecedented event, with all of the necessary equipment on hand, demonstrations of how a local casino operated its race horse keno game were provided to the judge and jury in a Reno, Nevada courtroom in 1950.

These presentations were part of the defense strategy during the three-day February trial regarding the civil court case, Leon Pierce v. Club Cal Neva.

Hedging His Bets

In his suit and when testifying in court, Reno resident and sporting goods store worker Leon Pierce alleged that the Club Cal Neva casino owed and refused to pay him $5,000 (about $60,000 today) for a winning race horse keno ticket he played in January 1949. Pierce claimed that the 10 horse numbers he chose to be winners, on a $1 ten-spot ticket, actually were. Pierce was the only witness for his side.

(A similar case involving plain, not race horse, keno would happen a decade later at the Nevada Club in Las Vegas.)

Going for the Win

The Club Cal Neva and its defense team sought to prove that Pierce’s keno ticket had been filled out after the winning race was called. They alleged that Pierce’s ticket had been for race number 126, as shown by his receipt, but the winning race had been 127. For some reason, his marked ticket was in the pile of tickets for 127 not 126. Because Pierce’s ticket was for a non-winning race, the casino didn’t owe him any payout, its attorneys argued.

To help jury members understand, Club Cal Neva casino manager Samuel “Sam” A. Boyd* explained the bookkeeping and other operations of race horse keno, using the game implements brought into the courtroom for this very purpose. He showed how tickets were written and payoffs were made.

He said the ticket mixup could’ve been the dealer’s fault or an incidence of Pierce “capping the book.” If the latter, Pierce likely distracted the dealer and slipped a blank race 126 ticket on top of the blank tickets for race 127 then asked him to write a ticket for him. The dealer grabbed and filled out the top ticket.

The Double Whammy

The defense presented two additional witnesses. The first was Emmet Shea, a former, local race horse keno writer now living in Montana. Shea testified that when he’d worked at Harolds Club previously, Pierce had asked him two different times whether he’d be willing to collude with Pierce to produce a winning ticket.

“I told him he was nuts,” Shea testified (Nevada State Journal, Feb. 17, 1950).

Shea added that some time after that, when he’d managed keno for the defendant, he’d instructed his writers to ban Pierce from the game.

Next up on the stand was Rudy Stanch, a current Club Cal Neva employee. He said that in July 1949 Pierce had offered him $200 to testify in court that his employer had operated keno illegally. Stanch said he’d refused.

On cross-examination, Pierce denied all of the witnesses’ allegations. He didn’t know how his ticket wound up in the wrong pile, he said.

Out of Luck

The jury, comprised of seven women and five men, deliberated the case for about two hours.

The verdict was in favor of the Club Cal Neva. Ten jurors voted for the casino, one voted for Pierce and another voted for neither side (civil suits didn’t require a unanimous jury vote).

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What do you think about this case? Did Pierce have a legitimate claim or was he trying to scam the casino?

* Sam Boyd went on to co-found Boyd Gaming and grow it into one of the world’s largest gambling empires. The stadium at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas is named in Boyd’s honor.

Sources

Duffin

1959-1960

William “Bill” E. Duffin, co-owner of the Senator Club in Carson City, Nevada, was murdered on Christmas morning of 1959 (see Part I). He left behind his wife Gladys, his sister, his nephew, a business partner and many employees to whom he was like a father.

Duffin moved to Nevada in 1943. Before acquiring the Senator with Stella C. Vincent, the two had operated the Wild Horse Hunting Lodge in Elko for 14 years. Prior to that, the Salt Lake City native had operated pinball machines in San Francisco.

The Suspect

Carson City police quickly honed in on Nicholas “Nick” V. Goodman as the likely perpetrator. He was the former Senator Club dealer whom Duffin had fired for cheating customers during 21 games. As a result, Nick’s casino work card had been revoked.

Investigators learned that when Nick had lost that job in mid-1958, he’d threatened Duffin and then-pit boss, Thomas Scarlett. Since, the dealer had harbored a grudge against Duffin.

Throughout those 18 months, Nick had remained unemployed except for a fleeting stint in January 1959. That was when he’d worked for two hours at the Holiday Hotel in Reno and was let go, when this new employer learned about his alleged past cheating.

Senator Club workers told police Nick repeatedly had asked Duffin to “sign a statement clearing him of the cheating charge,” reported the Nevada State Journal (Dec. 29, 1959). Each time, Duffin had refused. This had happened most recently two weeks before the business owner was slain.

Vincent reported Nick had badgered her as well to get his work permit reinstated. She, too, though, had told him again and again she wouldn’t. Their most recent interaction had been on December 21, when Nick had showed up at her home, uninvited, and warned her, “Get my card back or else” (NSJ, May 28, 1960).

Goodman

The Evidence

When investigators questioned Nick, he had gunshot residue on his hands. He explained that by saying he’d fired a gun on Christmas Eve but as a test.

The suspect didn’t have a strong alibi for when the shooting of Duffin had occurred. Nick said he’d been away from home, but had been looking for his wife Genevieve Goodman, as they’d gotten separated when they’d been out earlier. (The time of the murder was 3:20 a.m.)

Some days later, the California Bureau of Criminal Investigation and Identification determined the bullets fired from Nick’s rifle matched those removed from Duffin’s body.

The Help

Police also arrested a Carson City handyman named Jack Armstrong for allegedly having hidden the murder weapon. They charged him with being an accessory after the fact.

Genevieve also wound up in jail, for allegedly having directed Armstrong to get rid of the gun and later, when she’d learned police were searching for it, having told him to move it.

All three suspects were going to be given lie detector tests.

The Admissions

They all came clean, one at a time, on December 28, three days after the crime.

Armstrong conceded he’d repaired the 0.22-caliber rifle Nick had used and had hidden it in a manure pile after the shooting.

Genevieve gave up Nick. Her hot-tempered husband, she added, had been growing increasingly angry at and preoccupied with Duffin for more than a year. that She also admitted her role.

Then Nick himself confessed he in fact had shot Duffin.

“I just went wild … berserk, I guess. I kept pulling the trigger,” Nick told police (NSJ, May 27, 1960).

The confessed murderer also revealed he’d tried to kill his ex-boss six months earlier one day when he’d spotted him inserting coins into a Carson City parking meter. When the gun had misfired, Nick had aborted the attempt.

Police let Armstrong and Genevieve go. The district attorney charged Nick with murder, for which he pleaded not guilty.

The Trial

When Nick’s trial got underway in mid-May 1960, he faced a potential death penalty if convicted.

District Attorney John Tom Ross and special prosecutor Emile Gezelin called a handful of witnesses to testify and played, for the jurors, the tape recording of Nick’s confession. Overall, the prosecutors laid out a strong case for Nick being guilty of the murder.

Nick’s defense attorneys, Samuel Francovich of Reno and Jack B. Tenney of Los Angeles, conceded the defendant had killed Duffin but argued he’d been insane when he’d done it. To save him from capital punishment, the team attempted to prove “Goodman went insane after 18 months of brooding and trying to prove his innocence in a cheating episode which cost the club its gaming license and himself his right to work at Nevada’s legal card tables,” the NSJ reported (June 1, 1960).

The bottom line for the jurors was whether or not Nick had been of sound mind when he’d shot and killed  Duffin. The prosecution asserted yes, he had been. They called for a first degree murder verdict and demanded the death penalty. The defense argued no, he hadn’t been sane. They demanded acquittal.

The Verdict

After nearly eight hours of deliberating, the jury of eight women and four men found Nick guilty of second degree murder. This conviction carried a prison term, not capital punishment, as a penalty.

“Defense attorneys Sam Francovich and Jack Tenney, together with Goodman’s wife, were jubilant over the second-degree finding. But Goodman was angry,” the NSJ reported (June 4, 1960). “‘For what?’ he snapped when newsmen congratulated him.”

Judge Frank B. Gregory sentenced Nick to a statutory 10 years to life term in Nevada State Prison.

After serving six years, Nick was granted early parole and released. 

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Sources

1958-1959

Two major impactful events occurred, one in 1958, the second 1.5 years later, involving the Senator Club, which offered the game 21 and slot machines. Near the Nevada capitol in Carson City, this casino-restaurant-bar was popular among state legislators and politicians.

At the time, Stella C. Vincent and William “Bill” E. Duffin had co-owned the business, 63 percent and 37 percent, respectively, for about two years. Duffin, though, ran the place.

Impetus For First Upset

Cheating at the Senator Club came to light in January 1958 when Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB) investigator William Walts witnessed Nicholas “Nick” V. Goodman dealing seconds, using the second versus top card in the deck, during 21 games. The NGCB called Goodman in for a chat. Agents told him they’d received unfavorable reports about his conduct and warned him he better deal cleanly.

Four months later, three Reno insurance salesmen filed a complaint with the tax commission, alleging a dealer named Nick had swindled them at the Senator. They’d seen Nick burn a card in the middle of a hand (take it from the top and put it face up on the bottom of the deck). This is usually only done after each shuffle. Nick also allegedly turned the deck or dealt from the bottom mid-game, so he could access cards used in earlier hands.

Also in April, Michael MacDougall, a gambling detective the Nevada Tax Commission hired to survey the industry in The Silver State, reported he witnessed cheating at the Senator Club (and at the New Star in Winnemucca).

Hammer Comes Down

To address the alleged cheating at the Senator, the NGCB held a hearing, per protocol, in June, for Vincent and Duffin to explain why they should be allowed to keep their gambling licenses.  

At the proceeding, NGCB agents questioned all of the witnesses, the co-owners and Goodman. Duffin and Vincent asserted they didn’t know cheating was taking place. Goodman denied he’d knowingly cheated, ever.

In late July, the Nevada Tax Commission, on the NGCB’s recommendation, revoked both gambling licenses associated with the Senator Club. All gambling activity ceased there. This was the first big blow to the gambling business during the Duffin-Vincent time.

Picking Up The Pieces

The co-owners made the best of it. They kept open the restaurant and bar and installed a dance floor in the casino space. Later, in early 1959, they leased the gambling concession to an outside operator.

Goodman, however, didn’t fare so well. He was fired from the Senator Club, for starters.

“The case washed up Goodman as a Nevada dealer, although he has steadfastly maintained he was not cheating,” wrote the Nevada State Journal (Dec. 27, 1959).

Shocking, Irreversible Loss

At the end of shift early Christmas morning in 1959, Duffin invited the Senator Club employees leaving work and some patrons still there to join him for breakfast at the nearby Silver Spur café-casino. Reportedly, Duffin often showed such kindnesses, including driving home employees so they wouldn’t have to walk or take a taxi in the dark wee hours.

Following the meal, the group dispersed. Duffin, on his way through the parking lot, stopped to wish several Silver Spur employees Merry Christmas.

Once at his car, after he opened the driver’s side door, a handful of bullets hit him in the back and drove him to the ground.

Duffin died then and there.  

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It Really Happened! will publish Part II next Wednesday, April 20, 2022.

Sources

Hands Up! by The Cowboy Artist, Joachim Lüdcke

1891-1935

“No matter in which position you face it, whether from front, above, below or at either side, the subject has you constantly under his eyes and his ‘gun.’ In fact, as you move, the figure appears to move with you.” This is how Reno Chief of Police John “Jack” M. Kirkley described the gunman in Hands Up!, the painting that adorned a wall of his office during his tenure, from 1919 to 1935.

Kirkley

The work of art was more than eye candy. An actual 19th century gambling-related crime in Nevada had inspired it.

In And Out

On Thursday, April 9, 1891 at about 11:30 p.m., “a tall man with a black silk handkerchief with eye-holes in over his face” armed with a six-shooter entered the faro room of Al White’s Palace Hotel and robbed the dealer, James Conroy, of about $800, a significant amount back then, reported the Daily Nevada State Journal (April 10, 1891).

Soon after, the police arrested a man who had $270 in gold coins and a 0.48-caliber revolver in his valise. He identified himself as Thomas Hale, a detective for the Chicago, Illinois-based Pinkerton National Detective Agency. His real name was Thomas H. Horn, Sr., but because he was working undercover in the area on a railroad wrecking case, he was reticent to tell it to them. Horn didn’t have the full $800 on him, so police theorized he’d had an accomplice, but they never identified or found one.

Horn went to trial for the crime, but the jury couldn’t decide one way or the other.

A Strong Defense

The state of Nevada retried Horn in September. During the proceedings, witnesses identified him as having been the robber. They described how he allegedly had come on the scene and yelled, “Hands up!” Then he’d held at bay numerous employees and gamblers, known to be gunfighters, and while doing so, had gathered the money and fled.

During cross-examination, Horn’s attorney highlighted these claims as ludicrous. He noted it was incredulous to think one person could control a dozen, gun-trained and -toting men for a period of time during which not one of them would resist or make a move.

Horn

Pinkerton

William A. Pinkerton, superintendent of the agency bearing his name, testified that Horn in fact was a detective employed by him and had been working a case in Northern Nevada at the time of his arrest. The jury acquitted the defendant.

Supposedly, the actual bandit remained on the loose and continued robbing people throughout the western states.

It Is Possible

Joachim Lüdcke, known in the American West as The Cowboy Artist, watched Horn’s trial in court. He boasted he could depict a man covering, with a pistol, numerous people simultaneously. Using an experienced Spokane scout and trapper nicknamed Death on the Trail as a model, Lüdcke created a watercolor version of Hands Up!.

H.G. “Doc” Brown, the owner of the The Owl Club in Spokane, Washington who knew Lüdcke, displayed this original in his gambling-saloon. Pinkerton spotted the artwork there. Given his connection to the story behind it, he asked Brown if he’d have Lüdcke paint a life-sized version for him in oil. The Cowboy Artist did, and Pinkerton hung the piece in his office.* The Pinkerton agency later used the image in its advertising.

A copy of this oil painting is what Kirkley displayed in his city hall office.

The Actual Perpetrator

Two years later, the Pinkerton agency tracked down and arrested the actual person behind the Reno faro bank robbery and many other similar crimes, newspapers reported. He was one Ed Wilson of Gifford, Iowa (according to The Jewelers’ Circular & Horological Review), aka Frank Shercliffe (or Shercliff), aka Kid McCoy, aka James Burke. Detectives caught up with him in Colorado.

The 20-something-year-old with several aliases was “one of the most daring, desperate, uncompromising of highwaymen and  general robbers,” described The Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette (Sept. 23, 1893). “The number of his crimes can only be guessed at, but their quality and the character of the man himself are so thoroughly well known that the police of the entire west say he is the hardest man they ever had to cope with.”

Wilson’s known offenses included robbing faro banks in Tacoma, Washington and San Bernardino, California in addition to the one in Reno and forcefully relieving two women of their diamonds in Salt Lake City.

Ultimately, the desperado was convicted of robbing a traveling jewelry salesman of $15,000 worth of uncut diamonds in November 1892 on a train going from Omaha, Nebraska to Sioux City, Iowa. A judge sentenced him to 17 years in the Iowa State Penitentiary.

Subsequently, Wilson was released on parole, which he then violated by leaving the state. His next run-in with law enforcement was in 1901 in Kansas City, Missouri, when police there arrested him on suspicion of stealing men’s traveling bags. During the takedown, Wilson tried to escape, and officers shot him in the foot. They returned him to Iowa.

The Final Twist

It may have been Horn after all who perpetrated the Reno faro bank heist, and he and the Pinkerton agency conspiratorially pinned it on Wilson, a known jewel thief.  

According to podcaster Simone Whitlow, “After this incident [in Reno] other Pinkertons began to view Horn as a ‘dirty cop,’ and would coerce him to move on to greener pastures – quite literally. His next role [was] officially a farm hand – unofficially an enforcer – for the Swan Land and Cattle Company, Wyoming.”

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* The original Hands Up! oil painting sold for $9,440 at auction in 2019.

Sources

1949

The Smiths, who owned and operated Harolds Club in Reno, Nevada appropriately named their casino Roaring Camp.

Generally, a roaring camp was “a gold-prospecting camp characterized by wild behavior, unrestrained drinking and gambling,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

Specifically, Roaring Camp was an actual mining settlement in California’s Amador County, on the Mokelumne River where forty-niners prospected for gold.

Also, Roaring Camp was the name of the fictional California gold mining town in American author Bret Harte’s 19th century short story, “The Luck of Roaring Camp.”

Harolds’ Roaring Camp isn’t around anymore, but California’s Roaring Camp is, as a tourist spot, Roaring Camp Mining Co.

Source: Reno Evening Gazette (Nev.), March 30, 1949.

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

1913-1915

Circumstances of a lawsuit in the U.S. led to an unusual occurrence, even for Nevada: the federal government taking over and running a Silver State casino.

It was The Big Casino, a combination casino, dance hall, hotel and restaurant, in Tonopah, then one of the state’s few remaining true mining towns. At the time, William S. Johnson and G.W. Summerfield owned the business.

The Ball Starts Rolling

The impetus for this unprecedented action was a lawsuit William Johnson’s ex-wife Roxa S. Johnson filed in mid-1913, asking the court to set aside the former couple’s divorce decree. A Nevada judge had granted it about 3.5 years earlier, on Dec. 14, 1909, on grounds that Roxa had abandoned William.

The two had married in 1890 in Ohio, and their union had resulted in a son Clemmer, born in 1896. At some point, the Johnsons had moved to Tonopah, Following the legal split, Roxa and Clemmer had relocated to and lived in Los Angeles. William had stayed put.

Details Of The Suit

In her filing, Roxa claimed she’d been deceived under false pretenses into signing an agreement noting William would give her an existing $13,000 (about $369,000 today) note and pay her $76 ($2,000) per month. His estate, however, was worth multiple times that, an estimated $110,000 ($3 million today).

Roxa also alleged she’d been induced to sign another document that waived notice of the divorce and allowed the case to be heard within an hour. She’d noted that while she’d waited in the office of William’s attorney for him to return, he’d filed the action, and the judge had granted a divorce decree. Roxa had signed the forms at 12:30 p.m., and the case had concluded before 2 p.m.

Further, she claimed the divorce had come about through fraudulent means. Specifically:

• The agreement she’d signed had no legal standing
• Roxa hadn’t known anything about a divorce action until the judge issued the decree

  William’s abandonment claim and his testimony supporting it had been false; she and William had been living together up to three days before the divorce request was filed

• No mention had been made of there being a minor child
• William had claimed he lacked financial means
• A default hadn’t been entered in the case

Judge Hits Pause Button

As a result of Roxa’s lawsuit, in August, Federal Judge William W. Morrow issued an injunction and restraining order to William, barring him from disposing of any of his property until the case got resolved.

Along with The Big Casino, William’s assets included the one-year-old Green Goose Tavern and other real estate, in Tonopah; 27,498 shares of the Nye County Land and Livestock Company; securities in other commercial entities; and about $3,000 ($85,000) in cash and diamonds.

Morrow also appointed a receiver, T.F. “Frank” Bonneau of Tonopah, to take control of and maintain William’s assets until further court order. William sought to have the receivership vacated, arguing that it was detrimental to his casino business and that the order was illegal, given that William wasn’t the sole owner of The Big Casino. The co-proprietor’s efforts, however, were unsuccessful.

Uncle Sam Becomes Gambler

Thus, on Aug. 21, 1913 the U.S. government assumed control of and began operating The Big Casino. Joe Monahan was in charge of the gambling component.

“These were mad, merry days at the dance hall,” reported The Tonopah Daily Bonanza (June 10, 1915). “Uncle Sam enjoyed a splendid revenue … he took the roof off and let the blue sky shine in. He brought forth card tables and other gambling devices and told his patrons to go the limit.”

For about two months, the government was “raking in the money” from this popular enterprise.

That revenue ceased, though, in mid-November, when the Nye County Commissioners revoked the business’ liquor license.

“Finally local authorities decided that Uncle Sam was entirely too rotten in his methods for a God-loving, law-abiding mining camp,” the Bonanza reported.

Once it became a dry establishment, patronage plummeted, and Bonneau closed the place soon after.

The Resolution

A few weeks later, on Dec. 15, 2013, The Big Casino reopened under new, non-governmental management, that of Charles Enquist, a previous owner. Liquor was allowed to flow again and did.

As for Johnson v. Johnson, it dragged on for two years, into 1915, but William wasn’t around for most of it. He died in March 1914 from heart trouble.

Ultimately, the court found Roxa had a legal right to much more than what she’d agreed to, about $80,000 ($2.2 million), according to Court Master Lester J. Summerfield, who’d heard testimony about and had assessed William’s assets.  

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Sources