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1967 When the owners of the Ponderosa — Reno, Nevada’s newest major hotel (at 515 S. Virginia Street, now the Wild Orchid) — were about to debut gambling, with a celebratory first throwing of the dice, they ran into…
1960 When one rural Nevada town grew into a gambling hot spot in the mid-1900s, the gamblers in another loudly grumbled. Soon after Idaho outlawed slot machines, its last vestige of legal gambling, the sagebrush-…
1941 In an override of Governor Edward Carville’s veto, Nevada legislators legalized bookmaking. The law explained that “the receiving of bets or wagers on horse races held without the state of Nevada shall be deemed to be…
The BAR symbol commonly found in slot machines today evolved from the early 19th century logo of the Bell-Fruit Gum Co., whose fruit-flavored chewing gum was dispensed when the player won. The flavors were those…
1969-present When executives of Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada hosted 12 people from Kansas City in 1969 as part of a gambling junket, it unexpectedly backfired. When their guests, after four days at the…
1936 An $11,800 gambling win (about $205,000 today) was the largest ever in Las Vegas to that point. The payout went to a man named A. “Blacksmith” Sweitzer after playing 21 (blackjack) for two hours, starting…
1974-1983 A revolt of the performers — athletes in this case — threatened to close a popular attraction at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas — jai alai. Unique to the Strip at the…
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…
1955 At least 10 hotel-casinos on the Las Vegas Strip offered entertainment, typically marquee names like Liberace and Mario Lanza, who’d played Sin City time and again. The Royal Nevada, though, changed it up with a…
1946 A tastefully attired gent in his 40s sat at a craps table around 7 p.m. on a March Tuesday and began to wager with bundles of $1,000 ($12,000 today). After betting Harolds Club’s house…
1952–1958 When Fulgencio Batista returned to power as president in Cuba in 1952, he aimed to foster a gambling empire from which he could generate revenue for his coffers. To facilitate casino development, he and…
1913 During an era of reform in the United States, the American-Hawaiian Steamship Co. tried to discourage gambling by raising the freight rate on poker chips transported from New York to the West Coast by…