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

Craps game at Harolds Club

1952

“Someone very dear to you is being held and will be killed if you don’t give me the money.”

This was the content of the note, a bluff, Frederick Charles Will, handed to the manager of the American Trust Company branch in San Francisco on July 28.

Walter Blomberg, whose wife was at home that Monday afternoon, gathered and handed $20,000 in small bills (about $188,000 today) to the robber, a 33-year-old draftsman and war veteran originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Will, aka Frederick Charles Klose, had Blomberg accompany him out of the Northern California bank and even onto a public bus — the escape vehicle — so as not to arouse suspicion among the other employees. At some point, the two men parted ways.

Just In Case

Will went to the apartment of a friend, Martha Dorn, where he opened the briefcase he had with him and showed her the money inside, scattering bills on the floor as he did so. He explained that he’d won $30,000 at the racetrack. She soon ushered him out, as she was expecting a guest. Before leaving though, he hid a wad of $20 bills in her sofa, which she would later discover and turn over to the authorities.

The Yen To Gamble

Next, Will spotted and asked an idle cab driver if he’d take him to Reno, Nevada. Anthony Gelini, 44, agreed. After switching to his personal car, Gelini drove Will to his apartment to pick up his roommate, Sidney Dubowy, also 33. From New York, he was an accounting student at Golden State College in the Bay Area.

Once all three were in the car and en route to Nevada, Will/Klose pulled out a gun and opened his briefcase to display the copious bills inside. “Well, I stuck up the bank,” he told Dubowy. “You didn’t think I would do it. But it was easy—just like in the movies” (Reno Evening Gazette, July 29, 1952).

Upon arriving in The Biggest Little City, at around 4 a.m., Will/Klose instructed Gelini to drive them to Harolds Club, which he did. Will and Debowy locked the briefcase in the car’s trunk and took the key with them into the casino, leaving Gelini outside to wait for them. The roommates gambled at the club for hours.

Now, What?

When they left Harolds, they discovered Gelini and his car were gone. While they were inside, he’d phoned his wife, relayed to her the events and instructed her to call the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and local police. Then he’d sped back to The City by the Bay.

Subsequently, San Francisco Police Department officers retrieved from Gelini’s trunk the briefcase and the $17,000 inside. They asked Reno authorities to apprehend Will/Klose and Dubowy.

By that time, however, the two men had caught a flight back to San Francisco. Shortly after their return, law enforcement agents arrested them at their apartment. 

Willing Or Unwilling Accomplice?

Eventually, more than $19,000 of the stolen $20,000 was recouped. In August, Gelini went to collect the bank reward for recovery of the money but was denied it. Instead, he was arrested soon after, following indictment on the charges of comforting and assisting a fugitive, hindering and preventing his apprehension, and concealing and transporting stolen bank funds between states. He, too, was arrested.

“He is deeply involved,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Karsh told the grand jury. “He was never under any coercion at all, and there was opportunity galore when he could have gotten away.” He only came back “because he knew the jig was up.” Karsh’s office had evidence, he said, that Gelini had planned to take all of the money that he could if he hadn’t gotten the $5,000 promised him.

Gelini countered, “All I was trying to do was to be Will’s friend until I could make a break. Too many cab drivers have been killed by not being friends.”

A jury found Gelini guilty of receiving more than $100 of the stolen money, $140 specifically. He was sentenced to a year and a half of probation.

Punishment Meted Out

As for the other two, Will/Klose was indicted on charges of bank robbery and interstate transport of stolen funds. Dubowy was charged with receiving, possessing and concealing stolen funds under $100.

At arraignment in federal court, Will/Klose told the judge: “I don’t want no jury trial. I want to plead guilty and be punished for what I’ve done” (Reno Evening Gazette, July 30, 1952).

Dubowy said, “I’m just a good natured kid; I was taken advantage of.”

On sentencing, in November, Will/Klose was given eight years in prison for each charge, both stints to be served concurrently. Dubowy got three years’ probation.

Sources

Charles Cora’s headstone

1855-1856

Charles and Arabella “Bell” Cora were a colorful, rich and well-known San Francisco couple whose lives jolted into misfortune one Saturday night in 1855.

He, 39, had made his money from dealing faro in Northern California mining camps and the city during The Gold Rush. Prior, he’d broken numerous faro banks in Louisiana and Mississippi, consequently, was banned from many gambling houses. He was “the foremost faro player on the Mississippi,” R.K. DeArment wrote in his article, “Gambling in the Old West.”

She, 27, had earned her wealth as a madam of a high-end brothel on Dupont and Washington streets. Though the two weren’t married, Bell used his last name.

“At the pinnacle of their professions, they were the elite of the sporting crowd, well acquainted with the top political and professional leaders of the city,” wrote Charles L. Convis, author of True Tales of the Old West: Gamblers.

Mutual Provocation

On Thursday, Nov. 15, the Coras were watching the play, Nicodemus, at the American Theater when during intermission, some men seated below recognized and shouted out to Bell. She playfully acknowledged them, after which both parties gestured bawdily to one another.

Sitting in front of the Coras, the wife of General William Richardson, a U.S. marshal, took great offense and asked her husband to make them stop. William, 33, demanded the Coras leave, but they wouldn’t. He asked the manager to force them out, but he, too, refused.

“The Richardsons stalked out, bitterly denouncing [Charles] Cora and Bell,” Convis reported.

Can’t Let It Go

The following night, Charles and William encountered one another again, first on the street then in the Cosmopolitan Saloon, where they had words in between drinks.

The next afternoon, William loudly went from watering hole to watering hole looking for Charles and revenge. When he found him, though, he seemed to have forgiven him as both imbibed more alcohol together at two watering holes before parting.

Later, William approached Charles in front of Montgomery Street’s Blue Wing Saloon and together they walked down Clay Street.

When they stopped at the corner of Leidesdorff, Charles aimed and fired his pistol at William’s heart. Dead almost immediately, William slumped to the sidewalk.

“One version has it that [Charles] Cora slammed [William] Richardson against a building, pinning his arms, and, as Richardson screamed ‘Don’t shoot! I’m unarmed,’ Cora shot him in cold blood,” wrote Dr. Weirde in the article, “For Whom the Belle Toils.” “Another version: Cora collared Richardson, Richardson reached for his weapon, and Cora fired first in self-defense.”

The Daily Alta California noted, “Murders have been committed for robbery or from motives of revenge, but for this last there appears to have been no inciting cause but an unnatural thirst for blood” (Nov. 18, 1855).

Justice With A Twist

The police arrested Charles, whose trial took place in March of the next year. For his defense, Bell hired a slew of attorneys, two of whom later would become U.S. Senators — E.D. Baker (Oregon) and James A. McDougall (California).

Baker’s fee alone was $30,000 (a $725,000 value in 1913, the earliest year for which conversion is available). Bell paid him half, all of which he immediately lost while playing faro.

The jury was hung and Charles, beyond bars, awaited a second trial in April.

Before that could occur, about 3,000 citizens angrily stormed the jail, armed with shotguns, rifles, swords, knives, and revolvers. Agitated by a second recent murder — that of newspaper man James King by city supervisor James P. Casey over a disparaging editorial — the newly reformed Vigilance Committee demanded Charles and James Casey’s release. He and his men greatly outnumbered, the sheriff complied.

The mob held unofficial trials for both men, who were found guilty. The minimum for a majority found Charles guilty; as for James, the same verdict was unanimous.

The committee members allowed Charles to marry Bell, which he did inside “Fort Gunnybags,” the vigilantes’ jail. At 1:15 p.m. that day, Thursday, May 22, from poles they rigged on their office building’s roof, they publicly hanged both men and left them there for nearly an hour.

“Almost every man, woman and child in the city was either a spectator or participator,” reported California’s Sacramento Daily Union (May 24, 1856).

Sources

Photo from the San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library

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 am.”

Judge: “How many dice were they using?”

Officer: “Four.”

Judge: “Case dismissed. I would advise you to study the game of craps before you make any more arrests. Only two dice are used in shooting craps.”

1911-1912

A San Francisco, California ordinance outlawed bucket shopping in 1911 — no  longer was running or visiting such an enterprise legal — and one operator didn’t like it.

Henry A. Moss, a bucket shop owner and Nevada citizen, vowed to fight the new law, as it prohibited him from running his four San Francisco branches, which did substantial business. Moss claimed that he’d invested $50,000 in his business locally, that he spent $4,400 a month in telephone and telegraph charges, that he had more than 1,000 customers and that he took in about $15,000 a year in profits (about $365,000 today).

His enterprise, Moss & Co., also had shops in these California locales: Sacramento, Oakland, Fresno, Long Beach, Redlands and San Diego. Locations outside of the state were in Reno, Nevada; Ogden, Utah; and Portland, Oregon.

His Tactics Begin

Moss immediately applied for a temporary restraining order (TRO) and a permanent injunction to prevent the police from hindering his operations, such as arresting him or any of his workers or customers. He claimed the city ordinance was “arbitrary, unreasonable, unjust, oppressive and discriminatory, and in violation both of the constitution of the state of California and the constitution of the United States.”

In response, a judge, in June, denounced bucket shopping as “nothing but gambling,” deemed the ordinance valid and denied Moss’ request (San Francisco Call, June 1, 1911). The proprietor then asked for several days to remove the telegraph network between his offices and close his business.

Instead of shutting down, Moss appealed the ruling and took the case to the federal court, asking it for a similar injunction, which a judge there denied.

City Fights Back

Despite the ban, Moss kept his San Francisco bucket shops open. In October, members of the San Francisco Police Department raided his offices, confiscated various paraphernalia and arrested six employees, 26 visitors and one of Moss’s attorneys.

The following month, those workers and Moss were found guilty and fined $100 or 50 days in jail (the visitors weren’t charged). He filed an appeal and secured a stay of judgment.

Soon after the U.S. District Court of Appeals declared constitutional the law that the federal Congress had enacted, thereby eliminating any basis for Moss’s appeals.

3 More Legal Rounds

1) Subsequently, Moss pleaded his case before the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, “reciting imaginary grievances and dismally pleading that his business has been attacked by competitors in the shape of the New York Stock Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade.”

The justices refused to reverse the lower court’s ruling, thus, denying Moss’ initial request for a TRO and injunction.

2) In December, Moss sued a dozen U.S. Circuit Court officers, charging they all conspired, with the management of the San Francisco Call newspaper (which believed bucket shopping to be nefarious and vowed to help eradicate it), to put him out of business. Further, he asked they be restrained from interfering with his operations.

Again, though, he lost his case. That didn’t stop him.

3) Next, he sued three Call newspaper executives — John D. Spreckels, owner; Charles W. Hornick, general manager; and Ernest P. Simpson, managing editor. He claimed they’d libeled him in the article, “Bucketshop Moss Cries Conspiracy,” which “was intended to impeach his honesty, integrity, virtue and reputation” (San Francisco Call, Dec. 29, 1911).

He also cited an op-ed piece, “Bucketshop Rascal and Newspaper Rascal Join Hands Against a Common Foe, The Call,” which purported the real purpose Moss had filed suit in the federal court system was to gain publicity in the San Francisco Chronicle, whose managers’ attitude toward bucket shopping was the same as Moss’s. He sought $100,000 in damages (about $2.5 million today).

In February 1912, Police Judge Charles Weller dismissed the cases against the Call men as baseless.

“So ends the legal farce, the shady and tricky misuse of the courts whereby the proscribed swindlers made their last stand against the inevitable. In none of these proceedings was there ever the slightest merit,” wrote the San Francisco Call (Feb. 18, 1912).

From Plaintiff To Defendant

Moss soon found himself the target of some civil suits. One, brought by an H.E. Churchill of Sacramento in 1912, claimed a male agent of Moss & Co. “induced” her to gamble in wheat by telling her it was like any other investment (San Francisco Call, Feb. 11, 1912). He subsequently persuaded her to bet more money, only to be informed later on that she’d lost all of it — $324 (about $7,000 today) — due to a turn in the market.

The judge required Moss to pay her back in full.

J.C. Robinson, a former San Francisco newspaperman, complained that on December 12, 1911, he’d arranged with Moss & Co. at its Oakland office to sell short, or bet against, 200 shares of stock at a certain price, and that he deposited $400 with the company to cover an advance. A month later, the stock had dropped seven points, paying a profit of $1,400 (about $33,000 today). All told, he was to get $1,800 — his original $400 investment plus his winnings. When he’d gone to cash in, he’d been told he had to go see Moss in San Francisco. There, Moss had informed him the business didn’t have enough money to pay him back in full and had given him a $200 check as partial payment. Moss & Co. hadn’t paid anything more.

Moss argued that because he hadn’t had a contract with Robinson — a violation of the state constitution — the deal was void and he didn’t owe the money.

The outcome of this case isn’t known. How do you think the judge should have ruled?

Sources

Commercial Row, Reno, Nevada, early 1900s; the Palace is at the block’s far end

1924-1932

The story of the estate of a long-ago Nevada gambler after his passing is strange and unfortunate.

John Quinn was a man who’d lost and made large fortunes in gambling and mining stock deals throughout The Silver State and other parts of the West.

He’d opened the first saloon-gambling house in the mining town of Taylor in the 1870s, for one. He’d been a partner in Nolan, May & Quinn, “which conducted the most liberally patronized gambling institution that ever graced Reno’s palmiest days” — the Palace casino at Commercial Row and Center Street between 1906 and the year the state had outlawed gambling, 1910 (Nevada State Journal, June 8, 1924).

“The Palace was one of the last of the celebrated western gambling halls, elaborately fitted and equipped with gorgeous chandeliers, mirrors, a mahogany bar, and an excellent assortment of money makers in the form of roulette wheels, faro banks, craps and card tables,” recalled the Nevada State Journal (Dec. 2, 1926).

Question Of Heirs

1924

John died of pneumonia at 85 years old in June in Needles, California, where he’d lived the previous 14 years. He left behind substantial assets —about $100,000 worth in California ($1.4 million today) and $33,000 worth in Nevada ($470,500 today).

John wasn’t thought to have any relatives, but a San Francisco-based attorney, Charles L. McEnerney, through an heir-hunting firm, found at least a son and five grandchildren residing in The Golden State. Although the gambler always had represented himself as unmarried, he’d abandoned his wife and children in Illinois decades earlier. In October of that year, McEnerney was appointed the administrator of John’s estate.

Suspicious Behaviors

1926

McEnerney failed to appear at a subsequent routine hearing concerning the California estate. Soon after, it was discovered that all but $437 of the $100,000 had disappeared. All parties involved suspected the administrator had misappropriated it.

An investigation revealed that McEnerney, in his past, had served time at San Quentin State Prison for burglary and previously in the 1890s, had pocketed $600 from the Vallejo post office where he’d worked.

When faced with fraud charges over the missing Quinn money, McEnerney pleaded insanity and was hospitalized at Agnews State Mental Hospital in California for an indefinite period. One of John’s grandsons, Eugene Quinn, was granted control of John’s estate.

A probe of John’s Nevada holdings began as well after Eugene learned 20,000 shares of the Palace property had been sold but no transaction record filed. That query brought to light that the $33,000 also had been depleted, by about $23,000. The theory was McEnerney had stolen those monies, too.

Taking Responsibility?

1928

In March 1928, McEnerney was released from the institution and immediately arrested on grand theft charges in California.

1930

In late spring, the since-disbarred attorney asked the court to return him to sane status; it was granted. Five months later, his trial for embezzlement of John’s California estate began in the City by the Bay. 

He was convicted only of stealing $8,000 from the Quinn estate and sentenced to 1 to 10 years at Folsom State Prison for grand theft.

Recouping Where Possible

1932

After several legal maneuvers, Eugene, with the court’s approval, sued the United States Fidelity Company for $23,000 misappropriated from John’s Nevada estate because the insurer had provided $35,000 of surety for McEnerney during his stint as its administrator.

The bond company argued the court-appointed attorney-investigator’s accounting was faulty and the Nevada court had lacked jurisdiction in ordering the financial reconstruction.

Eventually, the two parties agreed to a compromise. United States Fidelity would pay $12,500 ($222,500 today) — roughly the difference between the bond figure and the stolen amount — to John’s estate.

With that amount being all, the Quinn heirs received only 10 percent of John’s wealth; the other 90 percent was gone, with no explanation.

Sources

Photo from the University of Nevada, Reno Library’s Special Collections

1957

In 1957, Club Primadonna chartered passengers to and from San Francisco to the Reno, Nevada casino on “champagne tours.”

On the September 28 return flight, delayed from 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. due to bad weather, the plane’s engines failed near the San Francisco International Airport. The pilot shouted, “Fasten your belts, loosen your collars. We’re going to ditch this thing” (Nevada State Journal, Sept. 28, 1957).

He crash landed the aircraft in the bay’s mudflats. From the marshy area, U.S. Coast Guard members retrieved all eight people aboard, all of whom survived.

1951

Chief Warrant Officer Marcus Gordon Oliver, paymaster at the U.S. Naval Station Treasure Island, complained of feeling ill and left work early on Friday, April 13.

The following Monday and Tuesday, he didn’t show up at the San Francisco office and hadn’t phoned. Co-workers called his home in Berkeley and got no answer. Oliver, 44, and his wife, Pollyanna, 34, a civilian clerk in a Navy pay office in San Francisco, seemed to be missing.

Upon learning this, Navy personnel immediately opened Oliver’s job safe and discovered the $29,000 ($275,000 today) he’d signed for and was supposed to disburse for payroll was gone. A search for the man who’d been in the Navy 27 years began immediately.  

Spending Spree Reconstructed

Within four days, Oliver was found in a hotel room in New Orleans, Louisiana, returned to San Francisco and charged with embezzlement and misuse of $29,000 in government funds.

During his federal court trial on April 22, a parade of witnesses — racetrack parimutuel clerks, casino workers and hotel staff members — testified to seeing Oliver patronize their businesses, gamble and spend money. Those included the Bay Meadows Racetrack in San Mateo, California and casinos in Reno, Nevada. For instance, Thomas J. Hill, a casino worker at Reno’s Mapes hotel-casino, said he saw Oliver bet an unopened package of $200 ($1,900 today) in $2 bills on a single dice roll.

Contrarily, a defense witness, Leonard Faust, a Navy chief petty officer, also at Treasure Island, said he’d seen Oliver, earlier in the month, win big on two different occasions when betting on horse races at Bay Meadows —$9,000 on one, $6,000 on the other.

Accountability: Opposing Views

Oliver claimed he’d experienced a seven-day blackout and denied taking or using any of the Navy’s money. He insisted the $15,000 ($142,000 today) he’d spent during his “missed time” was his own, cash he previously had won ($9,000 and $6,000) at Bay Meadows.

Nevertheless, the judge deemed him guilty and sentenced him to three years in federal prison.

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James Coffroth is pictured here, on the scrip

1915

The ’49 Camp, one of the attractions at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, offered a gambling experience in which chips could be bought for money but cashed only for free-admission coupons for the other Joy Zone amusements. However, event officials soon discovered the gaming taking place was more real than pretend.

Roaring Recreation

This world’s fair, a celebration of the Panama Canal’s completion, spanned 600 acres in San Francisco, California and ran for nine months, from February 20 to December 4.

’49 Camp was a replicated California mining town from The Gold Rush era, which illustrated the characteristic places, the goings on, the people and their lives. It showcased “log cabins and rough shacks such as the men of 1849 first were housed in, dance halls and gambling hells,* bars and tamale joints, Chinese wash houses, Indians in their wickiups and cowboys and gamblers and the bad men of the camp with their shooting irons in evidence,” reported the Reno Evening Gazette (Nov. 11, 1914).

Duels on the streets, shootouts, claim jumping riots and vigilantism all took place. The justice of the peace tossed hellions into jail. A band of Native Americans in full regalia marched the grounds playing music. The Mt. Lassen volcano spewed lava at night. A forceful stream ascending the mountain range turned the water wheel at Sutter’s Mill (the original one). In the placer, miners dug for gold, and guests, for 25 cents, panned for nuggets. (Expo authorities banned the “two-bit beer” and “gay maidens” early on, considering them too raunchy for the audience, noted the Oakland Tribune on March 13, 1915.)

Davis

The camp was a revival of “the days of old, the days of gold, the days of ’49,” said Samuel “Sam” P. Davis, the brainchild and marketer of it (Sunset Magazine, July-December 1915), who also was the editor of the Carson City Appeal newspaper. He’d had success already with the mining concept at the Midwinter Fair in 1894 San Francisco.  

The historic representation spanned five acres and was constructed for $75,000 ($1.8 million today), financed primarily by a Walter Smith.

The Gambling Surprise

By requirement, the simulated gambling at ’49 Camp was limited to roulette, faro, 21, craps and wheel of fortune, and the currency restricted to scrip redeemable for entry into any other expo Zone area.

“Thousands, it is declared, flocked to the resort each night. Chips cost a dollar a stack on the roulette tables and the faro layout; on the crap tables they ran as high as a dollar apiece. Thousands of dollars were lost in a night,” noted an article in The Survey (Oct. 23, 1915). (One dollar in 1915 was equivalent to about $25 today.)

The popularity of the gambling there was due to its operators paying winners in money, not scrip!

When the event authorities learned of this violation of the state’s anti-gambling law, they shut down ’49 Camp.

“It’s a dead camp without gambling,” Davis said (Nevada State Journal, April 14, 1923).

Coffroth

A Fresh Start

In September, he sold the camp to James W. Coffroth, 43, a prizefight promoter. Crester Rowell, a member of the state exposition commission, warned Coffroth he’d lose his money if he tried to open a gambling operation. Coffroth must’ve assured him and the other commissioners he wouldn’t.

Yet, within a month, Coffroth and his Pioneer Days Company were in trouble with them when they discovered, one, gambling (faro, roulette and craps) was taking place and, two, that the scrip could be redeemed at face value for merchandise, Rowell said, in “certain restaurants, saloons and resorts of questionable character” in town, again illegal given California’s gambling law (Oakland Tribune, Sept. 21, 1915). Notices in ’49 camp listed such places.

“Whether it is cashed at 100 cents on the dollar or 39 cents on the dollar, the fact remains that the gambling in the camp is a disgrace and a stench in the nostrils of the state commission,” he added. “No authority was given [Coffroth] to conduct gambling. He now asserts that there was a tacit understanding without any specific discussion that there would be gambling.”

The exposition’s director of concessions ordered the gambling stopped in ’49 Camp. It was, and patronage plummeted.

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* “Gambling hell” is an informal reference to a gambling house or den.

Photo of ’49 Camp Scrip from Panama Pacific International Exposition
Photo of Samuel “Sam” P. Davis from the University of Nevada, Reno Special Collections

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