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1964 The Dunes in Las Vegas, Nevada switched from writing off unpaid IOUs to claiming them as income, allegedly to keep Internal Revenue Service agents from harassing its customers — asking guests in the hotel…
1895 When two small boys appeared in a San Francisco, California court for shooting craps, the arresting officer testified. Then this transpired: Judge: “Are you sure the boys were shooting craps?” Officer: “Of course, I…
1953-1955 In fall 1953, John “Fat Jack” Galloway was playing the card game, 21, at Leo Quilici’s hotel-casino, the El Rancho Hotel, in Wells, Nevada. Fat Jack himself, in his early 40s, was the operator…
1968 Howard Hughes, billionaire industrialist, received the Nevada Gaming Commission’s blessing to buy the Stardust hotel-casino in Las Vegas for $30.5 million and moved forward with the acquisition. He already owned five such properties on…
1880 British and French patrons crowded the Casino de Monte-Carlo, games were in full operation and large sums of money sat on the tables. It was a typical Saturday night in spring at the Monaco…
Mid-1870s Virginia City, Nevada, at the peak of the mining boom when the population was about 18,000, boasted one gambling house for every 150 people. That’s 120 of these places, primarily saloons! Some of the…
1945-1955 In the late 1940s, three bookies — or commissioners, as they preferred to be called — operated on Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, California under the name, Golden News Service. Hy Goldbaum, George Capri…
1954 Late on a Saturday night in 1954, during the peak of business, an unemployed, 27-year-old railroad hand entered the Stockmen’s Hotel, in Elko, Nevada, where townspeople, miners, ranchers and tourists congregated to socialize, drink and…
1890 Judge Beckley Campbell conducted court in a Benicia, California saloon. After hearing the evidence and deciding on a verdict in cases, he meted out punishments based on the result of tossing two dice in…
1960-1967 Los Angeles mobsters, Louis Tom Dragna and John “The Bat” Battaglia, conversed in a hotel-casino cocktail lounge on the Las Vegas Strip one day in February 1960. But their visit was cut short when…
1948 A real or perceived protective relationship with illegal gambling operators got Nevada Police Superintendent Lester C. Moody fired. Governor Vail Pittman, who’d appointed Moody to the position two years before, terminated him in May…
1970 When Connie Stevens, entertainer, departed after a stay at the Kings Castle hotel-casino in Incline Village, Nevada, she accidentally left $20,000 ($122,000 today) worth of jewelry in her suite. Linda Cooley, a housekeeping team…