It Really Happened

Hollywood Actor Turns Casino Host for U.S. Crime Syndicate

1958-1959, 1966-1967 Having grown up in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen with various mobsters-to-be — Meyer Lansky, Joe Adonis, Frank Costello and others — he remained cordial with them throughout adulthood. He had deeper relationships with…

Teach Monkeys to Gamble, How Do They Then Behave?

Late 1970s, 2000s Fay and Jessica were young, capuchin monkeys living on the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) campus, where two professors in the department of psychology intended to teach them how to gamble,…

Gold Rush Era Gambler Makes Fortune in West With Thimblerig

Late 1840s-1858 A list of Western United States’ gamblers would be incomplete without William “Lucky Bill” B. Thorington.* A thimblerig master, he plied his craft in the Western mining camps and towns from Sacramento to…

Mobster Ties: Blessing and Curse for Gambling Conglomerate

1963-1970s With assorted help from Mobsters starting in 1963, a small Chicago, Illinois-based pinball game maker, which had begun as Lion Manufacturing Co. in the 1920s, grew into the world’s largest slot machine developer, Bally…

Quick Fact – Naming Bally

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…

10 Intriguing Facts About Mobster/Gambler Allen Smiley

Allen Smiley “was one of the most powerful gangsters in [California],” wrote author Gerald Horne in Class Struggle in Hollywood, 1930-1950. He was Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel’s partner and best friend and subsequently, Johnny Rosselli’s* right-hand…

Gambling History Tidbit

This week, Nevada gambling regulators removed New York mobster, Charles “Charlie Moose” Joseph Panarella, from their List of Excluded Persons. Formerly the Black Book, this compilation contains the names, photos and criminal records of personas…

Protests Deliberately Disrupt Gambling in Las Vegas

1971 Actress Jane Fonda and renowned activists led about 900 people down the Las Vegas Strip on March 6, 1971, a Saturday, in protest of welfare cutbacks.   “Today we launched a spring offensive and…

Gambling History Tidbit

Harolds Club, a casino founded in 1935 in Reno, Nevada, acted uniquely when it came to giving customers money back! Historian and author Alicia Barber explains in her report, Looking Back: The Special Refund Policy…

Reno Company Handcrafts Animated Slot Machines

1950-1956 A novel, animated gambling device began to appear in Nevada casinos in 1950. It debuted in the lobby of Reno’s Mapes hotel-casino in the fall and “got a big play from visiting Shriners,” reported the…

It Really Happened! is Back

  Hi, Wonderful Gambling History Blog Subscribers, I hope all is well with you! I’m so thrilled to announce that It Really Happened! is back up, and I’m generating new posts for it. I apologize…

Los Angeles Mafiosos Snuff Out Innocents’ Lives Over Gambling Beef

1937-1981 An innocent man was placed in law enforcement’s crosshairs in late 1930s Los Angeles for a heinous crime … the frame-up stuck. Caught Unawares While strolling on Southern California’s Redondo Beach Strand, or boardwalk,…